


erejean fic collection

by searwrites (sears)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Fic Collection, M/M, each chapter is its own fic, see each chapter summary for fic warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-24 06:16:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 26,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1594628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sears/pseuds/searwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>originally posted to tumblr</p><p>----------</p><p>these were all originally prompts from my askbox on the old tumblr. each chapter is its own respective fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Apodyopis/Gymnophoria

**Author's Note:**

> original prompt: Apodyopis (The act of mentally undressing someone) & Gymnophoria (The sensation that someone is mentally undressing you)
> 
> I chose erejean, i hope that’s alright! this turned out kinda long, 4.5kish. this is also basically porn, so nsfw
> 
> (warnings for homophobic slurs, tiny/vague mentions of past abuse, trash talking community colleges, underage drinking, uhhh +more i am probably forgetting)

This place is as much of a prison as high school was, Eren thinks. Grey, paper thin carpets, white walls, cheap plastic tables. Even the computers are ancient, whirring in dust, probably not even capable of running a newer operating system. Every class feels like a waste of time, every test is too easy to be challenging, but enough to keep up the illusion of ‘doing something with your life’.

There’s one good thing about this class, at least. Hot Jean is in it. Hot Jean, as opposed to very much Not Hot Jean, the lady down in the ‘caf that serves up week old sewage on the hot food line. Some of the windows down there even have bars on them - the older part of the building still intact from where they propped up some plywood to extend it. Community college - a slightly less beneficial institution than prison. At least people that leave prison are meant to be reformed when they get out, or some shit like that.

It’s the highlight of his day though- Hot Jean. Hot Jean and his chiseled jaw, his beanie that looks like an XXL sock hanging loose on his skull, his hoodie and jacket combo, his all white Jack Purcells. He dyes his hair, this weird lavender-blond combo that hangs over one half of his face out from under the beanie - this only means he knows he’s hot, which is unfortunate, not like it matters.

Not like Eren would ever say anything about his less-than-affectionate nickname for the guy, not that Eren would even want to admit to crushing on the class jerk-off. If ever there were someone to serve as a constant reminder that high school was only a year ago, it’s _this_ guy. Hot Jean and his clique-y clan of attractive friends, Hot Jean and his pickup truck that looks brand new.

Eren has a good view. The school is too poor for individual desks, only lines students up on what were probably meant to be lunch tables, arranged in a big boxy U shape so that the professor is right in everyone’s line of sight. Eren snorts to himself- _professor_. These assholes probably don’t have a degree to their name, not like Eren really plans on becoming any better than that himself.

Hot Jean and his perfect jaw, the slide of muscles beneath skin when he grins all wide and stupid like that, baring sharp teeth. He wonders if Jean is a biter, what it would feel like to have his perfect teeth sink into his own skin, mark him maybe. Eren doesn’t pay attention enough to know if he’s 100% straight or not, not like it matters. He’s allowed to daydream.

But this class is so fucking boring, his daydreaming gets muddled. He starts to think of Armin, off at his fancy university. They probably have individual desks there, all carved from rich, dark woods, leather padded chairs for all of them. The rooms there probably feel less clinical, more warm and full of books and hardwood floors that creak when you walk over them. Here all you get are the dull, bored thud of rubber soled shoes on flimsy floors.

Hot Jean has his leg crossed up, the heels of his Purcells resting on the edge of the table, bouncing his foot like he’s listening to music and not the drone of the world’s worst web design lecture. It’s probably weird as fuck to think, but he probably has hot feet, too. And Eren isn’t even into that, but it all aligns with the idea that there isn’t a single flaw on Jean, except maybe that his personality more than likely sucks.

He’s got slim legs, he wears tight enough jeans and slacks for it to be noticeable. Cute ass too, not like Eren is a connoisseur or anything. It’s not curvy or big, it’s small and kind of boy-ish, but Eren likes it.

Broad shoulders though. His arms are slim, but he’s lean- or toned, whatever. Like he could hover over Eren and hold him down, if he wanted. Eren gnaws on the inside of his cheek without realizing it, wonders what it might look like to be beneath him. No beanie, Eren chides his imagination. Just him - stupid girly hair flopping into his eyes, the sides of his head shaved and dark. He never seems like the sweaty type, so it’d be that much more satisfying to get him all hot and glistening. Would emphasize the small amount of muscle he has, would make it the most insane panoramic view down his torso, right until the soft hairs trailing down to his cock-

“Mr. Jaeger?” his teacher interrupts the mental visual, in her usually detached bitchy tone.

Eren only snaps out of it when he sees Jean has totally caught him staring, is turned in his seat, watching him with one eyebrow arched.

“What?” he grunts, turning forward and crossing his arms over his chest, the buckles on his jacket making an ugly clank against the stupid fucking plastic table.

“I asked you if you knew what boolean logic was,” she says.

Eren shrugs rather violently, “ _And_?”

“And, are you planning on participating in the class?”

Holy shit, Eren is this close to walking out of here. Isn’t college supposed to be easy, isn’t it supposed to go unnoticed if you aren’t fucking paying attention now? Jean is laughing, smirking at Eren like he’s some kind of mutant and he’s oh-so-proud to be above him on the food chain in this hellhole.

He tactfully decides not to reply, just shrugs again and sinks further into his chair, ruffles the fake leather of his jacket as he does. The teacher declares they’re pairing off into groups of four, and as stupid as it is, Eren kind of forgets to feel like shit about it because she’s decided to cris-cross the grouping, and he’s in with Hot Jean.

He’s not excited, that’s… not it. Jean doesn’t like him, and _he_ doesn’t like _anyone_ , so he’s not planning on doing or saying anything different. It’s just sitting close to him is kind of exhilarating, in a way it really shouldn’t be. Eren stomps over to their side of the tables, slumps down into one of the recently vacated seats at Jean’s side. He wears cologne - to fucking _school_ , he wears cologne - jesus _fuck_ , he smells amazing.

About halfway through the murky planning on building some kind of bullshit tourist website for a city of their choice, and Eren’s caught back in his own head again, picturing Jean above him, Jean’s mouth on his neck, teeth biting into his skin. Eren is close enough now that he can skim the length of Jean’s body, catches the bulge at his crotch. It could just be the fold of his pants there, but even still - skinny legs and tight pants mean it’s kinda hard to hide a monster dick.

“Dude, are you high?”

Huh?

Eren whips his head around, glares at Connie, who’s staring at Eren like he’s made of gaping wounds- something disgusting but still fascinating.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Eren barks.

“Uhh, you’ve been staring at Jean this whole class? Do you even know what city we’ve picked?”

Hitch starts to laugh too, her obnoxiously high pitched chuckles sparking an itch beneath Eren’s skin. It only really sinks in what’s going on when Jean starts laughing too, covering his mouth with his fist, turning his face to the side to hide it.

“Why the shit should I care what city we do?” Eren bites, though it’s quieter, and his cheeks are starting to burn up. The downside to being pale and pasty - everyone can see you blushing.

“Are you _gay_ or something?” Connie snorts.

Jean snorts too. Which hurts, for stupid fucking reasons that don’t really make sense. Eren is used to being laughed at, but not for something this accurate, something he didn’t think he’d ever really care about.

It’s when Connie mutters mock-quietly to Hitch, “I bet that’s why he’s got no friends - they’re all afraid he’ll bone them in their sleep.”

Eren stands with enough force to jostle their table, to make all three of them jump. He mutters a grunted “fuck this” about the same time Hitch calls him a fag, and he doesn’t even bother looking at Jean before he storms out of the class entirely. What’re they gonna do - expel him? Fucking _good_.

—

Eren stands out in the cold, his shoulders resting against the icy brick, right behind the cafeteria, finishing off the last of his cigarette before he decides whether or not he bothers on going to his last class. Community college isn’t a huge loss if he drops out, right? He can get jobs now - shitty ones, yeah, but he could make it work.

“Hey.”

Eren’s eyes flick to the rickety wooden doors, probably widening ridiculously when he realizes who’s walking over to him. Hot Jean, who really has no reason being back here. No one even knows this back exit exists.

“The fuck do _you_ want?” he barks, jerking his chin forward.

Jean doesn’t stop, keeps walking towards him like he knows him, like he does this all the time. Eren is suddenly acutely aware of the brick at his back, at the concrete surrounding them, at the fact that there’s no windows out here, no one would see them. Fuck.

Jean ends up backing Eren into one of the corners between the old and new building, which Eren practically falls into, his feet scuffling all the old cigarette butts against the dusty ground. Jean kinda backs off when Eren flinches, holds his hands up.

“I just wanted to apologize, dude, calm down.”

“Fuck you, you think _I’m_ the fag?” Eren practically yells, his shoulderblades bumping against the wall when he’s hit the limit of his retreat, when he’s got nowhere else to back away to.

“Well, yeah-”

Eren’s heart speeds up, some weird twist of fear and anger, and _fuck_ \- a little bit of arousal at the proximity of Hot Jean, because even if he’s an asshole, he’s still attractive and he’s really, _really_ close now.

“What the fuck does that make you then? Cornering me behind the school?”

Jean narrows his eyes, stops crowding Eren into the corner. He smirks, and Eren hates the fact that he swoons a little at it.

Then this asshole has the audacity to ask, “You like what you see?”

It’s fight or flight, it’s what living your whole life as an inner city fuckup will do to your decision making.

“I’ll fuck you up, man, I’m not some weak little fairy,” Eren growls.

Jean smiles - actually fucking _smiles_ at this. “I’m not trying to fight you, idiot. I’m asking if you like what you see.”

He’s started moving closer now, Eren didn’t even notice. He can smell his cologne again, that’s how close he is - he can see the building blocked gust of wind ruffle the hair that hangs out from his beanie, can see the way his throat bobs when he swallows, how perfect his teeth really are. His lips are kind of thin, and Eren gets a little dizzy picturing them wrapped around his cock, his hand in that stupid hair.

“What if I did?” Eren replies, without really thinking it through.

Jean’s grin only turns sharper, more pointed, more fucking devastating in its effect. “I could show you more, you know?”

Eren isn’t dumb enough to fall for this yet. He’s been through this all before, baited by a pretty face only have the results equate to a few bruised ribs and cracked teeth.

“More like showing my face to the dirt under your shoes, right?” Eren snorts, careful in showing any real fear or hesitance.

Jean laughs again, loud and kind of friendly sounding this time. _Jesus_ , he’s hot. And his pupils are so fucking blown that Eren can’t see the color in his eyes anymore. The thought behind what that means makes his cock throb in his jeans.

“Not unless you’re into that,” Jean replies haughtily, “I mean more like I could take my clothes off. You could take your clothes off too.”

Shit, he’s close. He’s so close Eren can taste his cologne in the air, it’s that distinct. And he realizes with a startling jolt that it’s the smell of Jean’s skin as well. He’s nearly close enough to taste that, too.

“Get naked and then go home, sounds like you really know how to party-”

“I do,” Jean interrupts, and then Eren flinches embarrassingly when Jean grabs for Eren’s hand, tugs it away from the wall by his wrist. “You wanna find out for yourself, you can call me.”

He smirks again, spins on his heels and saunters back through the doors into the cafeteria, and Eren gazes stupidly down at his hand. He wrote his fucking number on his palm. With a fucking sharpie, too, so Eren can’t exactly ignore the intention behind it.

—

Jean apparently lives near the art school, in a shitty looking loft above an ad agency on the main street. And Eren says it looks shitty, which means it probably has value and was once renovated on the inside, doubling the price because of the location. This kind of apartment isn’t cheap, and Eren glances at Jean’s truck parked on the street while he waits to be buzzed up and finds himself wondering if he’s got rich parents or something. Which wouldn’t really explain him attending the worlds shittiest community college, but money can’t really fix stupid, he supposes.

Two flights of stairs, old wood banisters, marble floors down the hallway - this place looks like how he’d imagine Armin’s fancy school does. Jean opens the door without Eren even having to knock, which is jarring on it’s own, but he’s _fucked_ \- so fucked.

Jean doesn’t have a shirt on, for starters, and his hair is all damp, a smallish looking towel hanging over one of his shoulders. He’s got these loose fitting sweatpants slung low on his hips, and Eren can see everything. Every ridge of muscle, the way his stomach tenses when he leans on the door frame, that soft patch of skin just above where his dick would be- _is_.

Is.

There is a dick there, underneath maybe one or two layers of fabric, and his skin is so hot from his shower that his body almost steams in the cold hallway.

“Comin’ in, or what?” Jean asks, and Eren scowls at Jean’s ‘I caught you staring again’ smirk.

Jean offers him a beer, which Eren declines. He stands awkwardly in Jean’s open kitchen, glances over at the wall length windows and the hardwood floors that creak. Apparently Jean’s apartment is Armin’s classroom, which is weird. Now he needs to rethink everything.

Jean keeps trying to make this fucking small talk, saying shit like “did you find it okay?” and “so did you go to your last class, or no?”, and Eren wants to scream at him. He’s not used to this, shit like this doesn’t just _happen_ to him. Hot Somebodies don’t just laugh at their friends calling you ‘fag’ and then chase you outside to write their numbers on your hands. They don’t invite you over after a few awkward text messages, that just _doesn’t happen_.

Maybe it does to normal people, but not to Eren. Not where hookups consist of grungy bathroom stalls and nameless faces, not where most leave him feeling cheaper than the beer his fake ID has managed to procure for the night. Jean even flirts with him, standing there in next to no fucking clothes, walks over to him and tugs on his jacket, tells him to take it off. Maybe this is an elaborate ploy. There’s no logical reason for it, but who needs logic for that kinda shit anyway?

“Cut the shit man, are you gonna do something or what?” Eren snaps, though it’s less heated than he’d intended it to be, because Jean is doing that thing again, walking with his feet spread wide, crowding Eren backwards until he hits the wooden half-wall behind his counter.

“What do you want me to do?” Jean asks, and his voice is lower than it was, raspier, darker. Eren’s stomach feels like someone’s lit a match in it, all hot and fizzling.

He tries to laugh it off, but it’s weak and hollow sounding, partly desperate in how he’s starting to lean towards Jean, rather than away from him.

He closes his eyes, and yeah- Jean’s skin definitely has a smell. It’s different than the cologne, it’s sweeter, more organic and warm.

“If I tell you what I want, are you gonna kick my ass?” he asks quietly, eyes still closed.

“I will admit, I am vaguely interested in your ass, but not in kicking it.”

Eren opens his eyes, frowning at Jean’s idiotic grin. He’s being cute, on _purpose_ , and Eren’s stomach feels like it’s falling. He’s blushing again, too - he can feel it, and he can tell Jean’s looking at it, scanning the breadth of his cheeks, glancing down his neck.

“What do _you_ want?” Eren asks.

Jean takes this as some kind of invitation, gets close enough that Eren can feel him breathing against his mouth, close enough that Eren is positive Jean can feel the reverberations of his wildly out of control heartbeat.

“I want you to fuck me,” Jean says, nearly whispers. “Or is that too gay?”

Eren’s eyes flutter shut again, this time from being overwhelmed, a vague attempt at catching the breath Jean seems insistent to steal from him. “That’s pretty fuckin’ gay,” Eren mutters shakily, and then laughs at himself.

Jean leans down, puts his mouth on Eren’s neck, starts to lick at his throbbing pulse point, and Eren whimpers. He immediately grabs for Jean’s shoulders, tries to steady himself. It’s too late to try and hide it, the gig’s up now.

His mouth trails up to Eren’s jaw, hot and wet, and then he says, right into Eren’s ear, “I need you to say you want it too, or this isn’t happening.”

“ _Fuck_ , I want it,” Eren says immediately.

“Yeah?” Jean says, pulling back and smirking again. “How bad you want it?”

Eren shoves at Jean’s chest, but Jean is quick, he catches Eren’s wrist and uses it to press them both closer together. He ghosts his lips over Eren’s jaw, this time not quite kissing, only teasing. It’s only when he rolls his hips forward, presses the hardness of his dick into Eren’s hip, that Eren snaps.

“Goddamnit, I wanna fuck you so bad, dude.”

Jean grins like a fucking asshole then, pulls back like he’s been told he won the lottery, even bites his tongue between his teeth, because apparently he has to control the appendage before he’s allowed to start licking Eren’s neck again.

They end up in an odd kind of tussle backwards, falling all over each other, kissing bruises and bites with intent. Jean is a biter, Eren finds, which only makes him moan like a cheap whore whenever Jean’s teeth scrape his neck, his throat, his chin, or when they tug on his lower lip.

Jean seems to know what he’s doing, at least. He lays out on his unmade bed, stomach down, holding the upper half of his body up on his elbows, the jut of his shoulder blades and the dip at his lower back making Eren salivate. He’s so consumed by the sight, he doesn’t notice Jean’s hand reaching backwards, smacking Eren in the thigh trying to get him to take whatever he’s holding.

Lube. And a condom. Shit.

Okay.

So.

He’s never done _this_ before, but he’s seen enough porn, read enough… stuff on it. He straddles the backs of Jean’s thighs, lubes up his fingers. He doesn’t really have the foresight to make it all that graceful, slides a slicked finger right into Jean’s ass, and then gasps when he realizes how easy that was.

Jean groans, lets his head fall into the pillows while his arms continue to hold his shoulders up, his hair disappearing beneath the droop of his nape.

“I’m already good, you know,” Jean says, voice tight and muffled by the pillow.

Eren slows his curious fingers, looks up the length of Jean’s back.

“Should I stop?” he asks, his heart pounding so hard he can feel it in the tips of his fingers. Shit, does that mean Jean can feel it?

“No, I mean-” Jean grunts, and then does this wave-like roll thing with his back, fucks himself on Eren’s fingers, which makes Eren’s cock start to leak like crazy. “ _Fuck_ , do whatever you want, it feels good.”

Eren keeps fingering him, breath coming in dizzying pants. He gets about as into it as he probably does when he stares at Jean - oblivious and far too focused, all at the same time. He pushes three fingers in, and then realizes he wants more, needs more. Jean is so hot, so fucking tight and wet, and Eren’s dick needs to be in him _now_.

He fumbles putting the condom on, cursing when it slides from his slick fingers, but then Jean is some kind of condom magician who manages to reach backwards blindly, roll it on him with only one hand. Eren pushes his hips forward without thinking, fucks Jean’s fist a little, and moans at the relief of the friction.

Jean pulls his hands away, smacks Eren on the hip. “No,” he says, his voice fucking wrecked from moaning over Eren’s fingers, “In me.”

Eren slides in, trying to be slow and failing, pausing to take a breath when he’s in to the root. He’s holding himself up with outstretched arms, his hands fisting the sheets at either side of Jean’s shoulders. He isn’t sure if he should move or not, and is kind of scared he’s going to just blow his load completely if he does.

“You gonna make me beg, dude?” Jean mumbles.

Eren’s arms are shaking. He starts to take a hint right about the time Jean decides he’s done waiting, and his first thrust forward is met with a writhing twist of Jean’s hips, pushing his ass up and back, and Eren moans out the longest curse his stunted breath can handle right now.

And then it’s like he can’t stop it - he curls his body, puts more weight on his knees at Jean’s hips, fucks forward with an earnest haste that he knows isn’t going to last long. Jean just keeps moaning into the pillows, pushing back against him, tenses the muscles in his back. It’s different than Eren imagined, but it’s perfect in it’s own way, and Eren sobs out a broken scream when he comes, mouthing lazily at the back of Jean’s neck.

—

Eren must have slept for a while, but once he’s up he’s alert as hell. It’s only just starting to get dark outside, they must’ve passed out and lost their entire afternoon afterward, but Eren isn’t really complaining.

He’s just… he’s waiting for Jean to wake up and tell him to leave, but then he’s not sure if he should counteract that by just leaving himself. He got what he wanted, right? So did Eren, really, but then why does he feel so hesitant to go?

“Dude, your eyes get so big when you’re zoning out,” Jean’s voice rasps just to the side of his ear, and Eren jumps a little, shivering at the sound of it.

“The fuck are you talking about?” he asks, purposely furrowing his brow and squinting.

Jean grins. Eren can see it out of the corner of his eyes, and he hears it too, in his voice and in the crackle as his lips pull over his sharp teeth. “When you stare at me in class, your eyes get all wide like they just were.”

Eren turns his head, frowning, and then gasps involuntarily when he realizes just how close Jean is. Jean actually leans up a little, kisses the corner of his mouth all soft, and Eren melts.

“I don’t do it on purpose, you asshole,” Eren mumbles, and frowns even harder when he realizes he’s probably beet fucking red right now.

“I like it,” Jean grins. “You really need to work on your subtlety, though.”

Eren glares. “Why the fuck did you wait until now to ask, then?”

Jean shrugs, stretches his arm up over the pillows, displaying the full length of his torso to the dim light of the room. Eren scans the length of his body, now completely nude and on offer, and rolls his eyes when he realizes Jean caught him again.

“Wasn’t really sure. Then I felt bad, I guess. Connie is an asshole, by the way.”

Eren nods vaguely, his nose brushing Jean’s bangs as he does. Their legs are all tangled up, Eren didn’t even notice. He’d just gotten used to the heat, he supposes.

“Do they know, then?” he asks, and genuinely wonders. Surely they wouldn’t say that shit if they did.

“Nah, they don’t need to either,” Jean says, and it’s not exactly a warning, but it doesn’t need to be - Eren won’t tell.

Jean sits up, yawns, runs his hands through his hair a few times. His back pops when he twists, and Eren reaches out, traces down his spine with the knuckles of his first two fingers, just because.

“Beer now?” Jean asks over his shoulder.

“Uh, I guess.”

Jean gets up from the bed, pads around the room in his bare feet, and then stops when he gets to Eren’s side, leans down over him, hovering. Eren’s heart picks up speed - he’s pictured this before.

“Was I as good as you thought I’d be?” Jean asks quietly.

Eren nods lamely.

Jean grins, dips down to kiss him hard and kind of stupid - no tongue, just obnoxiously affectionate. Eren’s heart thumps.

“We’re doing that again, by the way,” he says, and then pushes up to leave his room.

“Oh, are we?” Eren shouts after him, feeling tired and debauched, covered in a thin sheen of cooling sweet and Jean’s dirty sheets.

“Yep,” Jean replies quickly, and then Eren yelps when the beer he tossed lands against his stomach, freezing cold against the warmth of his skin. “But please, feel free to continue eye-fucking me in class.”

Well, Eren thinks, he can manage that.


	2. brojob

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> based off of [this image](https://31.media.tumblr.com/a3698386080e55feccf5cdd4ddbcf6a6/tumblr_inline_n2unecDBov1sw5szc.png)
> 
> (warning for drugs/driving while high, slurs, etc)

they’re both high as shit, so jean really shouldn’t be driving. but that’s kind of the problem - there isn’t fuckall to do in this town except smoke in your parent’s basement and eat your weight in doritos and chex mix.

it’s okay though because eren _gets it_ , like… he doesn’t think it’s weird that jean hates people like they’re guilty until proven innocent, doesn’t bother trying to tell jean he should try a little harder, waste a little less time.

so four bowls into the night when jean suggests they should go sky gazing, it isn’t weird. eren doesn’t call it a dumb idea, only laughs and says “it’s _star_ gazing, you fucking idiot,” to which jean can quite fluidly declare that “even the stars get bored of this shithole”

there isn’t even any cars, so jean can swerve if he needs to, fumble a little as he alternates between going 10 over and 15 under. it’s a windy road up to the viewport, so jean blames it on that. eren has a nickname for his car, calls her bertha, cus she’s got a wide load and can guzzle gas cus “bitch is _thirsty_ ”.

eren is currently off on a rant about “the ratchet hoes” that plague the female population of this town, which makes them sound almost more enticing than they are — he stops though, real sudden and coating the inside of the car in a heavy, muffled silence. jean missed the gear stick, ended up grappling right for the general vicinity of eren’s dick. jean is high enough to laugh on impulse, and eren does too, but that pause meant something.

it meant enough to get jean pulling into an empty dollar general parking lot, the asphalt lit by a hazy green glow, and eren’s looking at jean like he’s waiting for something, laughing, not even bothering to ask why he didn’t drive all the way up to the top, why he’s settling for less than the best.

"you don’t even have a skylight dude— in your car-" eren blurts, and then jean bursts into an almost hysterical peel of laughter, moaning just a little because eren is lifting his hips, unbuttoning his jeans and pulling down the zip, his cheeks red from laughing and maybe something else.

it’s not even a thing, it’s not something that’s _asked_ , you don’t ask your friend if you can touch their dick you just fucking _do_. you just ignore the tremble in your hand and slip it beneath the hem of his boxers, fondle his balls and shiver when you feel how warm it is, how soft the skin is there, how his laugh sounds less wasted and more wrecked - wrecked in a way bud will never get you.

there’s cicadas in the background, otherwise it’s dead silent way up here. jean should have turned the radio on, because all he can hear is eren’s breath, catching on shivering laughter and covering quiet moans while jean continues to palm at his dick. he makes a split decision to lean over the gear stick that misled him so horribly, grunts as it digs into his ribcage, a stab to the out of control vibrations of his skeleton from the thundering pulse of his heart.

eren laughs when jean takes him into his mouth, except it morphs into something that sounds more like a scream, startled and desperate. he immediately grips jean’s hair like he’s falling through the ground, making these quietly confused pleading noises, pushing jean’s head further into his groin. jean laps at his dick, chokes once or twice from a misplaced laugh that bubbles unannounced from his chest — because this is fucking ridiculous, right? yeah, okay, sometimes he might cuddle eren in his sleep without meaning to, and maybe when eren gets cold and his lips turn all red from biting them and trying to lick the chap from them, jean might want to lick them too.

eren giggles, but it’s tighter than usual, like he’s forcing it out from his throat. “brojob dude, aha, _ah fuck_ ,” he says, like he’s just come up with the name, like it makes sense now because they’ve identified what the fuck is going on and given a label to it. jean tries to laugh around eren’s dick, but it comes out more of a hum, and eren’s fingers tighten in his hair.

the sole fact that eren’s dick is hard in his mouth makes jean feel dizzy and kind of insane. he really shouldn’t be fucking driving, but he isn’t, not anymore. it feels like the car is moving, like his whole body is floating and pushing it forward with some kind of magical momentum, which stops gut wrenchingly quick when eren curses and moans, pulls jean’s head away from his dick now, and then comes all over jean’s tongue and his lips.

eren is panting when jean pushes himself up, elbows weak and trembling, hand gripping the handle on eren’s door, like he’s keeping him here, half afraid he’ll bolt. there’s this manic sort of glimmer in eren’s eyes, illuminated by the shitty neon green light from the store, and it makes jean think of the videos of torture victims he found that one time he had a bad trip. he almost apologizes, but then eren bursts out laughing again, and jean is so relieved, _so fucking_ relieved.

his heart is running a marathon, he’s convinced. it’s making his breath feel short, and then eren leans over to lick a wet smear of come from jean’s chin, tongue lingering at the corner of jean’s mouth. jean kisses him because it feels like he should, because he’s chasing that relief, and he only closes his eyes so he never has to see how scared eren just looked, never again. eren kisses him back, and laughs into his mouth.

"fuck, you’re such a faggot," jean says, sounding hopelessly charmed somehow, and just saying that word makes him hot in the face, makes his tongue a little wet, makes his fingers itch to touch eren’s dick again, just to see if it’s still real or if it’s still hard. it’s probably wet now, from his own mouth, softening and pink at the tip. jean shuts his eyes tighter.

"so are you, dude," eren giggles, pulling away, holding jean by the collar of his tshirt and stretching it out. he kisses jean’s chin two times, one, two, jean counts it. he should count other things. he could count eren’s eyelashes, he’s even close enough to see them, to get kinda lost in the drop shadow it makes on his cheeks, the weird overhead light making his skin look almost alien.

they drive back down, because jean’s legs feel like they’ve had the bones in them removed, and his mouth is getting dry now, too dry- he needs a drink. he vaguely wonders if putting eren’s dick in his mouth again might make it feel less like he’s been chewing cotton, but stomps the idea out because it’s making him want to laugh again, and he doesn’t want to have to explain the idea to eren when he rolls his head to the side and asks him what’s so funny.

they both crack up when they get back to jean’s place, because eren never zipped up his jeans, his cock is just out in the fucking open, and it’s kind of hard again. he tucks himself back in, his face still too red, too hot, too fucking hot. eren is hot. eren stumbles like his legs have been reduced to jelly too, and jean laughs.

hah. brojob. _right_.


	3. clothed (sort of) carsex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> original prompt: could you write something like (shy) erejean + clothed sex/frottage? (´▽`) 
> 
> warnings for possible voyeurism, drug references, mama’s boys, and too many dated music references

Eren isn’t exactly sure why he started hanging out with Jean again— or when, for that matter. They were seen as sort of rivals as kids— both in the local soccer league, but on different teams, similar music interests, but different gigs. The only reason they ever really spent time together was because their dads were friends, or worked together, or something along those lines.

Their friendship wasn’t much more than forced playdates at family barbecues and the arcade at the pizza parlor after games. Eren’s view of Jean was more masochistic fascination and less competitive disdain. Jean was nice to look at, and Eren didn’t understand why.

He knows when it all went to shit, though. Right around the time that Eren’s father left him and his mother to fend for themselves. They stopped spending so much time with the Kirsteins, and Eren and his mom had to move out of their nice suburban house and into an apartment closer to the city.

But now… now Jean goes to the same community college Eren does, which is dumb because his parents could afford better. He’s probably just a fucking idiot, like Eren always expected, but that doesn’t explain why he’s doing this - why he’s idling outside of Jean’s mother’s house in his car, squeezing the base of the steering wheel like it’s a stress ball that isn’t working.

“Thanks for picking me up,” Jean says, grinning like a smug asshole, as he slides into Eren’s passenger seat. He lost his license last year. Like, _literally_ lost it— he’s just too lazy to apply for a new one. He’s chewing something too, some kind of candy that smells like raspberries and is making his tongue a little blue.

“Whatever,” Eren says, and scoots off in his Jetta.

Jean has changed a lot more than Eren has, which is weird because where Eren’s life has been a whirlwind of change, Jean’s lived in the same house for his whole entire life. Jean used to like some of the same kind of music as Eren, but now it’s all rap and weird stoner ambient shit. He smokes, but only weed, where Eren smokes cigarettes. Jean’s tried to get him high a few times, but Eren genuinely isn’t interested.

He’s still a cocky little shit, at least. That much hasn’t changed.

“Where the fuck’s the cable for the thing?” Jean asks, his words slurring around whatever the fuck it is he’s chewing, holding up his brand new iPhone and waving it around.

“Can you try that again in English, please?”

“The cable thing in your shitty tape player so I can play music,” Jean says, now bent between his legs as he looks under his own seat for it.

“We’re almost there, and we’re not listening to your lame music. Puts me to fucking sleep.”

“Oh, whatever dude,” Jean huffs, and eventually gives up and sits back in his seat, leans on his elbow by the door lock and gazes out the window.

It’s pitch black outside, even the street lamps shadowed by the fullness of the trees. It isn’t quite autumn yet, so most of them still have their leaves in tact. It also means it isn’t quite cold enough to justify Jean wearing a hoodie beneath his coat the way that he always does, but Jean apparently isn’t one to follow rules, ever.

Eren pulls up to the dock, parking in a small patch of packed dirt that he assumes is meant to be some kind of lot, even though it’s empty. They’re surrounded by shallow water and empty tin warehouses that look like they’d collapse if the wind ever picked up, and _shit_ \- Jean found the rca cord attached to his stereo wrapped around the gearstick.

“This is like a scene from GTA, dude, who really does drug deals at shipping docks?” Eren huffs, looking around them at the seemingly endless amount of nothing.

“It’s not a drug deal,” Jean says, scrolling through his music until he’s found a suitably sleepy rap number that sounds kind of retro and cool, even if Eren would never, ever say that out loud where Jean could hear him. “I’m just trading my old vicodin from when I fucked my knee up.”

Eren snorts. “Trading for _what_?”

Jean turns to grin at Eren, his teeth bright but shadowed in blue from the lack of light around them. “Cash, of course.”

Eren should feel more nervous than he does, but for all Jean’s book-smart stupid, he’s actually pretty quick on his feet. It’s probably just a pleb from school, some poor junkie that thinks the sun shines out of Jean’s ass. They all think that, even Eren, to an extent. But that’s not a new feeling, and he still doesn’t quite understand why.

The music gets turned up to obnoxious levels via Jean’s phone, so Eren shouts and turns it down with the volume wheel on his stereo, scowling.

Jean leans back against the seat, rolls his head to the side until his smirk is directed right at Eren. “You know, you probably don’t remember this, but we used to have very similar taste in music.”

Eren snorts, but doesn’t turn to look at him. He’s poised holding the wheel, which probably makes it seem like he’s ready to peel out and hightail it the fuck outta the docks if something bad happens, but that isn’t it at all. Jean is just good at making him feel nervous— completely unrelated to drugs or prescription trades.

“Yeah, I remember,” he says. “You were a shortboard fuckhead who wore backwards snapbacks and thought shit like Finch and The Used were god’s gift to music.”

“Hey,” Jean protests, smacking Eren on his bicep playfully. “You can’t tell me The Used wasn’t a pop punk revolution. McCracken? _Nobody_ screamed like that.”

“They did,” Eren retorts, brushing away the residual tingle of Jean’s fingers on his arm, and then blushing because Jean is watching him do it. “They just didn’t make it onto the radio. Also, Bert McCracken is the creepiest motherfucker to ever hold a mic.”

Jean laughs, his mouth finally free of whatever shit he was chewing, but Eren catches a flash of a faintly blue colored tongue when he glances over to him.

“You insult my tastes, but you can’t tell me you don’t agree with some of it.”

“Doubtful,” Eren says.

“Do I need to go through the list?”

“Do you _have_ a list?”

“Of course I have a list, everyone has a list,” Jean practically shouts, and Eren vaguely begins to wonder if they’re still talking about the same thing here.

“God, this is going to be awful-”

“Well, for starters,” Jean begins, settled back into the seat and now gazing out at the water the way Eren is. He lifts his hand to count off his fingers. “Finch was never fucking on the list. Except for their, like, two collabs with Palumbo, which then I’ll consider making an exception-”

“Wait, you were a Glassjaw fan?” Eren turns to him.

“Head Automatica.”

“Oh, you fucking _heathen_ -”

“Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, Saosin-”

“No wonder I hated you, jesus christ,” Eren barks, and is a little surprised that this is what gets Jean to stop rambling.

“Did you really hate me?” Jean asks quietly, and Eren glares at him. “I always just assumed you liked me, I guess. And you had a shit way of showing it.”

It hits Eren like a violent bolt of lightening tossed from close quarters, and he’s about to tell Jean that _yes, that’s it, that’s what it fucking is, jesus christ,_ but then Jean comes back with a, “I mean, your music taste was shit, but I never _hated_ you for it. The skintight jeans were what pushed me over the edge, I think. Got kinda sick of seeing your preteen dick outlined on the inside of your skinny little thigh.”

“Fuck off, dude-”

“What?” Jean asks. “We can’t all be little metalhead grungers, okay. Besides, at least I grew out of it. That genre is so dead you could plant flowers in it and it’d fertilize itself.”

For some reason, Eren’s stupid brain decides to take that personally, like Jean said it just to offend him.

“I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you— you still listen to J fucking Dilla, and he’s been dead since 2006.”

“Don’t even talk to me about Dilla, he’ll never die. My taste has only gotten better with age, I’m like fine wine, okay.”

“Or like fucking moldy cheese,” Eren grumbles.

Jean grins at him, Eren can feel it without even really having to see it, his head lolling sideways on the headrest, his teeth glinting in the moonlight.

“Are you _flirting_ with me, Jaeger?” he leers.

“Stop it,” Eren replies sharply, and then squeezes his steering wheel. He can still feel Jean’s grin pointed at his face, like it’s a stick that’s poking him in the side, so he snaps, “Can you _not_ stare at me, asshole?”

“Why?” Jean asks, and then he scoots closer, leans over the gearstick. “Do I make you nervous?”

Eren makes a very ill timed decision to turn his head and tell Jean to fuck off, please, but the words die in his throat because Jean’s face is _right there_ — right where he can see the hole in Jean’s nose from when he used to have it pierced before he had to take it out when he got his first job at the cinema, where he’s close enough that he can smell the candy on his breath.

The most gratifying part of this turn of events, is that Jean looks like he’s been stunned stupid by the close proximity, his eyes wide and pupils fat, and Eren gets this heady rush of adrenaline as he nudges the side of his nose against Jean’s. The hitching gasp that Jean makes is a sound that goes right to his dick.

And then Eren isn’t really sure what he’s doing. He keeps gently nuzzling against Jean’s nose, making Jean’s mouth quiver and pant, and it’s like he’s always known something was different with him. That he’s an idiot with a pretty mouth, that he teased Eren relentlessly, but it always felt more like veiled compliments. That Jean has been probably about as equally transparent as himself, and it doesn’t help that he’s grown up hot, either. College hookups aren’t really Eren’s thing, but they could be— _Jean_ could be Eren’s thing.

His veins are still pumping adrenaline, so much so that he can feel his pulse on his wrists and his neck, worries that Jean can see it flutter beneath his skin, even though it’s dark outside. It only makes it seem like less than it is when he pushes his chin out, takes Jean’s lower lip into his mouth and sucks on it tentatively, letting it slowly slide out from between his teeth. Jean still looks part terrified, his eyes now insanely dark, and he isn’t pushing Eren away, but Eren actually kind of knew he wouldn’t.

_This_ is why they started hanging out again, Eren now confidently admits to himself. It’s because he’s been stupidly attracted to Jean since he was a kid, and the only reason they never got to the stage of actually becoming friends was because Jean reminded him too much of what it felt like to have his dad around, to not have to catch his mom crying out on the porch at night, legs crossed and smoking Eren’s cigarettes.

“Was I right, then?” Jean half whispers, and the wrecked edge to his voice makes a shiver run down Eren’s spine.

“Huh?” Eren breathes, and then swallows thickly over his out of control pulse.

“You liked me, right?”

It’s the most insecure Eren’s ever heard Jean sound. That isn’t even a question, it’s Jean begging for reassurance, it’s Jean not knowing what it’s like to lose constants in your daily life and to wonder what you did to warrant it, it’s the same thing Eren’s had to deal with since he was twelve years old and raised as a teenage boy by only his mother. Eren doesn’t know what to say to that without it coming out bland and disappointing, so instead he kisses Jean, mouth open and getting wet and a little filthy from the eager brush of Jean’s tongue.

Eren was wrong, it isn’t raspberries. Sour apple, which doesn’t explain the blue.

Jean’s hand flies to the back of Eren’s neck, pulling him over and down, until they’re both equally bent over the gearstick of his car. Eren’s hand fumbles to turn to the car off, ends up accidentally flicking the wipers on, and the horrible smudgey sound of them going over his dry windshield makes Jean jump.

Jean laughs, right into Eren’s mouth, and when Eren’s shaky hand finally switches the fucking car off, he melts right into it, into the echoed sound of Jean sounding a whole new kind of happy, and into the desperate way Jean grips at him.

Eren ends up crawling into Jean’s lap, straddling his thighs with his knees barely fitting on the seat, the old leather squeaking beneath them. Eren has those skintight jeans on that Jean apparently can’t stand, but he groans right into Jean’s mouth because he also apparently knows right where to touch him on his thighs to brush against the strain of his erection. That thought goes right to his dick, too— that Jean has looked at Eren’s dick before, albeit covered by clothes.

Jean tears open the button of Eren’s jeans, reaches into them and rights his dick so it’s not caught in the tight fabric anymore, cups him loosely over his crumpled boxers. Eren ends up humping his hand, kissing him even messier than before, all open mouths and lazy tongues.

Grunting rather unattractively, Eren decides to sit back on his heels, swatting Jean’s hands away from his dick and then fighting to push away the layers of hoodies and shirts from Jean’s groin. He finds the button of his jeans and fumbles with them, the same way he fumbled with turning the car off, and the way he’s panting must make it sound like he’s about to dive into cardiac arrest, because Jean’s hand is suddenly massaging the back of his neck, pulling him down.

“Hey, hey, calm down, okay?” Jean whispers, and Eren shoves frustratedly at his chest, even though there’s nowhere he can go with it. Eren’s heart feels weak, like it’s made of tissue paper and filled with heavy, blunt objects, but Jean’s hand on his neck is soothing.

“I _am_ calm,” Eren lies through gritted teeth, and then he whimpers when Jean starts mouthing at his jaw, licking his pulse point. “Jesus, _fuck_.”

Jean’s mouth trails up past Eren’s ear, making him shiver violently, and then they’re kissing again, just as wet and deep as before, but slower, less rushed. Jean shoves his own hoodie and shirt up, parts his jacket, leaving his stomach exposed. Eren pets it almost reverently, the skin soft, and doesn’t realize Jean’s pulled his dick out too until he’s pushing it against Eren’s hand in suggestion.

Eren sits back again, shimmies his jeans down his hips, and then presses both of their cocks together and moans against Jean’s cheek when they finally slide against each other, skin on skin. He’s frozen in the sensation, open mouth pressed into the side of Jean’s face, fucking both their dicks with his fist.

Jean comes first, in what Eren would probably think was an embarrassingly short amount of time, if it were him, but he’s distracted on that thought because Jean’s spurting all over his hand and it’s _so_ fucking slick, so hot and wet, and Jean is out of breath, panting and begging Eren to “come for me, please, _fuck_ , I need to see you come.”

When he does tip over the edge, he drops onto Jean, clutches at him like he’s falling, moaning into the space between Jean’s hood and his neck, the musky, warm scent of his skin making Eren dizzy. Jean just rubs his lower back as he rides it out, his own hand still holding Eren by the back of his neck. Once Eren feels stable enough that he doesn’t think the car will tip over if he moves, he pulls away, right after placing a soft, and oddly thankful, kiss against Jean’s neck.

Eren reaches behind him, pops open his glovebox and takes out a wad of old Subway napkins to wipe them both off. Jean decides to laugh at his choice of branded cleanup, mocks him and says something stupid like, “I’d eat you fresh, all night,” but then Eren screams and Jean practically jumps through the roof when someone knocks on the window right next to their faces.

“Fuck,” Jean curses, shoving Eren back into the drivers seat, making him yelp when the gearstick digs into his back, “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.”

Eren is half expecting Jean to deny it, for him to pretend nothing happened and decide never to speak to him again. Jean storms out of the car in a frenzy of mussed hair and loose clothes, and where Eren expects Jean to tell that guy he saw nothing, nothing at all, Jean instead says, “You fucking asshole, did you not see we were busy in there? Jesus.”

Eren blushes furiously, and sinks back into the drivers seat, half hoping it’ll eat him alive. This isn’t just a pleb, this is a fucking _teacher_ , a professor at their school. Eren’s never really talked to Mr. Dawk, but he isn’t that surprised when he thinks about it.

“Do you not have a watch, boy? I’ve been sitting over there for twenty fucking minutes,” Mr. Dawk says, and then gestures over to a now vacant bench by one of the warehouses. There’s a car parked right behind it.

Shit, Eren thinks, blushing furiously now, his face hot with it. He probably saw, or at least heard, the whole goddamn thing.

“Fucking creep,” Jean grumbles, and then passes what Eren assumes is the remainder of his vicodin in a bag to Mr. Dawk, while he gets a wad of cash in return. Eren isn’t really sure if that’s what happens, because he’s adamant not to even look Mr. Dawk in the eye right now. Fuck.

“Most college kids get apartments to fuck in,” Mr. Dawk says, and then as he’s turning and heading back to his car he adds, “Especially spoiled, rich ones.”

“You’re welcome!” Jean shouts obnoxiously after him, and then slams the door a little too hard once he re-enters the car.

“You’re selling pills to teachers?” Eren asks quietly.

“It’s for his wife,” Jean says, huffing as he adjusts his hoodie and zips up his jeans, and then bends over again to find wherever he dropped his phone. “She had surgery on her spine or something, and they won’t prescribe her more than that weakass tylenol number three.”

Eren inhales shakily, turning on his car and then gripping the base of the wheel while he waits for Jean to get situated.

“What just happened?” he asks dazedly, and Jean stops fussing with the playlist on his phone to look at Eren.

“I sold pain killers to my professor for his sick wife, I just told you—”

“No,” Eren interrupts, “Us, I mean.”

Jean leans over suddenly, kisses the corner of Eren’s mouth, and moans quietly when Eren turns into it, slides their lips together. Jean pulls back just far enough to say, “I don’t know, but I’d like it to happen again.”

Eren glances behind Jean, at the only very recently vacated front row seats Mr. Dawk had of their last encounter.

“Will he tell?” Eren asks, and he isn’t sure who he’s worried of him telling. The school? Doesn’t care. His mom? Already knows. Jean’s mom? Probably knows too.

“Nah, Nile’s cool,” Jean murmurs, and then kisses the corner of Eren’s mouth again, this time on purpose. “Besides, why do you care?”

“I don’t,” Eren says, “But maybe you should get an apartment. For like. The again’s.”

Jean smirks and then falls back to his seat.

“High maintenance, I knew you would be,” he says under his breath, and Eren is about to dispute that claim, but Jean says, “Drive me home and I’ll think about it.”

It’s something, at least, as Eren kicks up a cloud of dust in their wake, leaves the faint blueish hue of the docks behind them, that Jean is so comfortable with bossing him around. And the only person that’s really shocked by this development and how it turned out is probably himself, so he doesn’t worry about who Mr. Dawk will tell, and he doesn’t even worry about Jean when he leaves the car. Right as he drives off Eren hears a distant echo of him shouting, _“Ma, I need an apartment.”_


	4. lipbalm/oral fixation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> original prompt: how about you choose the characters from the erejearmin trio yeah? ok so, character A has chapped lips and starts using lipbalm, and character B just enjoys kissing A out of the blue and tasting their lipbalm.

jean and eren like to disagree on things.

eren thinks jean’s ‘bane’ hoodie is outdated and irrelevant; jean thinks its nostalgic and meaningful. jean thinks eren cuts his own hair because he’s a socially awkward spazz and can’t stand to sit in a salon surrounded by bright lights and perky females; eren says it’s because he doesn’t trust anyone near his head with blades. eren hates his mouth, wishes his mom could’ve afforded braces, thinks the crooked turns and sharp canines are embarrassing and has since trained himself not to smile because of it; jean thinks his mouth is fucking gorgeous.

because he got so used to purposely not smiling, he ends up biting his lips all the time, tugging the flesh between his teeth until it goes white, turning pink after. it’s what started jean’s fascination with staring at him, so he has an odd sort of attachment to his mouth and all the nervous ticks that go along with it.

eren’s even doing it now, biting the inside of his lip, his mouth pouting cutely as he pushes his lips out, it morphing into a kind of blank sneer that he guides with a thumb at the corner of his mouth. eren catches jean staring and turns pink, covers his mouth with his hand, hides from him.

and then this time is somehow different— jean only notices it after he grins like an idiot, crawls over the gap between them on eren’s floor, pushes right up into eren’s personal space.

“why do you smell like fucking _strawberries_?” jean says, sniffing and frowning curiously.

“fuck off, i do not,” eren mumbles, voice muffled by his palm. he pushes jean back with his free hand, but eren is too weak to jean’s insistence now.

jean ends up prying eren’s fingers away from his mouth, eren struggling enough that jean unintentionally manages to pin him to the ground.

his lips are… _wet_.

they’re shining, soft looking, and they smell like fucking candy, and jean’s entire body goes warm, flushes in heat.

“are you wearing lipstick, dude?”

eren shoves at jean again, this time harder, more of a slap, and then covers his mouth again with his hand. jean is quick, though, and he snatches it and holds it to the ground by his wrist before eren can hide again.

“it’s chapstick, you asshole,” eren mutters quietly, blushing all the way down his neck.

chapstick to jean means the shit you buy for 59 cents at the checkout counter, means the shit that smells like… well, _chapstick_ , and doesn’t really look like anything. this looks more glossy, tinted kind of pink, accompanying the tinge on eren’s cheeks nicely, and jean lets his mind wander for half a second, wonders what it would feel like to smear the shimmer out from the corner of his mouth over his cheek, what his lips would look like stretched around his—

“it was mikasa’s okay,” eren huffs, his head falling back, thunking against the floor. he glares in something like defeat at the ceiling, and jean dips down real close, presses their foreheads together.

“do you have any fucking idea how hot that is?” jean asks.

eren looks like he genuinely doesn’t— like the idea of this being considered hot and not horribly embarrassing never even crossed his mind. jean uses this momentary pause of shock to flick the tip of his tongue over the fat of eren’s lower lip. fuck, it even _tastes_ sweet.

“why?” jean asks, mumbles— _grunts_ , maybe. he licks along the seam of eren’s mouth, follows the sticky sweetness until eren parts his lips. his mouth is filthy and wet, already _so_ _wet_ , his tongue hot, and jean licks into him with the kind of urgency that makes it feel like he’ll die if he doesn’t taste every inch of him.

“ _mmph_ ,” eren huffs, pushing jean away from him, laughing quietly when jean pushes past it to kiss him again, only to frown when he’s denied. “’lips were chapped, it’s all we had.”

jean leans up on his elbows, licking the sweet taste from his own lips, staring hard at eren’s mouth. he’s biting his lips without realizing it again, smearing whatever jean didn’t manage to lick off of him, and jean decides to catch eren by the jaw while he can. he puts his thumb on eren’s lip, tugs it down until he can see the sharp edges of his teeth.

and jean is fucked because eren does this all unintentionally— there’s even a list now, at least a mental one. eren letting his sister paint his nails and then not taking it off until it chipped from his fingers, eren wearing panties to school the one time jean bribed him with puppy eyes, the way eren’s waist has this distinctive little curved dip inwards, the way eren wears lipgloss and bites his fucking lips. he kind of wants to see all of these at once, but he also doesn’t want to get punched, so.

“you fucking perv,” eren bites, shoving him again and squirming from where jean straddles his hips. “you’re thinking about me sucking you off, aren’t you?”

two steps behind, but still kinda on the money.

“would you put more on if i asked you to?”

eren bites his lip again. jean dips down and sucks on it until eren whines, high in his throat.

“maybe,” he answers breathlessly.

jean might be a little fucked up, but he’s grinning anyway. eren doesn’t have to be a girl, if that’s what jean wanted then he’d still have a weird thing for his sister like he did back in the ninth grade. jean figures it’s just that eren’s a little weird too, and maybe they’re the right kind of weird together.


	5. eren in a dress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warnings for crossdressing, dirty talk, references recreational drug use, etc -- based off of fanart that maggie did for me

so, this might just be the dumbest fucking idea eren thinks he’s ever had, but he’s half-gone from jean’s new gear and has been secretly ruffling through mikasa’s closet while jean is at least moderately distracted by the television, for the time being.

he snaps the top part of the elastic over his chest, frowning at the mirror at the hollow thud it pulls. the fabric is a little loose where mikasa’s tits probably usually sit, but eren just tugs it down a little to compensate, makes the tiny yellow tube dress just barely cover his ass and the hang of his dick.

he pulls back to look at himself for a second, to take it in. it kind of makes him feel dizzy, in a good way. not like a heavy hit kinda high, something different— more adrenaline and organic, the sight of scabs on his bony knees and how pale the upper part of his thighs are, all managing to make his heart thud. each resonating pulse makes hollow sounds in his skinny chest, almost the same way the elastic had.

eren isn’t pausing because he’s nervous, no. it’s just. admiring the view. or something. jean will probably laugh at him anyway, and then they’ll tear it off and jean will suck his dick and tell him to put on a hoodie or some shit. he’s way more fucked up than eren was, gives new religious dedication to the term ‘wake and bake’, so he’s probably too caught up in the pattern of eren’s mom’s curtains to notice that eren isn’t even in the room anymore.

there isn’t any announcement. eren walks back into the living room, pulls the remote from jean’s slack hands, and tries to ignore the way jean is staring at him, his cheeks flushed bright pink, his eyes wide. eren, very playfully, princess dives right into jean’s lap, kicking our his bare toes, and then grunting when he pulls the hem of the dress over his balls.

jean looks like someone flicked the switch on the control of his facial muscles to ‘off’.

“what do you think?” he asks, and then looks down at the dress to tug at where it’s ridden up his thighs, too afraid to look jean in the eye right now. “mikasa only wears dresses when she wants to one-up her bitchy friends, i think i could steal this one and she wouldn’t notice.”

jean gapes, his eyes trailing slowly down eren’s chest (eren tugs the elastic up again, self consciously). his gaze rests a little heavily on the spread of the fabric between eren’s thighs.

“pervert,” eren chides, elbowing jean in the side, and only then realizes that he’s been holding him this entire time. “say something, dude,” he adds quietly.

“fuck, you look hot,” jean says, mouth turned down, like it’s physically painful to him.

eren grins, and on shaky knees he sits up, moves to straddle jean’s lap. he tugs the back of the dress down to keep his ass covered, even though it doesn’t matter— nobody’s home.

jean leans over to reach for the remote, turns the tv off and fumbles the remote hard enough for eren to know his hands are shaking. once he turns it off his palms rest on eren’s thighs, pushing the dress up a little with his fingers.

“you have nothing on under this,” jean says, staring up at eren like he’s just found god, or some shit— and he doesn’t voice it like a question, because his hands are sliding between eren’s thighs now, feeling the seam where leg meets hip.

eren presses his mouth to jean’s, finds he’s breathing about fifty times harder than he realized, his chest heaving beneath the delicate yellow fabric. it’s not quite a kiss, because eren doesn’t think his brain can keep up with his mouth right now, but he pulls back and jean looks right into eren’s eyes as he strokes the skin beneath his balls, that whole area a little scratchy with hair slowly growing back after having shaved.

“would you fuck me in a dress, jean?” eren whispers into his mouth.

jean’s hips surge up like they’re out of his control, like jean is some kind of puppet with the strings all tied to eren’s tongue. his hands are still shaking, eren notices, as he shakily lifts the bottom of the dress, skates his palm over the curve of eren’s ass and then squeezes.

“yeah, _fuck_ ,” jean murmurs, pausing to press desperate kisses to eren’s open mouth.

jean is hardly even touching him, and he’s gonna come— gonna fuck up mikasa’s dress so that he’ll _have_ to steal it, because fuck trying to figure out how to wash this kind of girly fabric. he thinks maybe he went about this wrong— he should’ve shown up to jean’s work, waited out in the alley behind the store and had him fuck him up against the dumpsters, would’ve begged for it hard enough to go home with brick shaped bruises on his back. but the logistics of getting there and getting home don’t make sense, and eren doesn’t really want anyone except jean to see him like this, so maybe it’s for the best that they do it here.

‘it’ is an aptly vague term for what they’re doing. the way jean gently cups eren’s balls and plays with him like he’s soft, like he’s got a pussy that needs petting and not a dick that’s hard and leaking a damp spot in the dress. he doesn’t even realize he’s moaning until jean tells him how good he sounds, _fuck you’re all wet, look at you, moaning my name, you’re so hot for it aren’t you?_

eren ends up coming all over jean’s hand and the dress, finally gaining the focused coherence to kiss jean like he’s suffocating and jean breathes oxygen, like he’ll die if he doesn’t. jean slows it down to calm him, tugs the dress back over him as best as his trembling hands will allow, and then kisses the very tip of eren’s nose once they’ve caught their breath.

“jesus _fuck_ , dude,” jean half-whispers, and then eren is pushing up off his lap, shoving the dress down and kicking it away once it pools at his feet.

“i’ll throw it away,” eren says a little awkwardly, reaching for the soiled bunch of yellow fabric, and yelping when jean’s hand finds his ass in a sharp _smack_.

jean, rather swiftly, leans down and picks it up before eren can get to it. “ _fuck_ no, we’re keeping this,” he says.

“it’s a mess, jean—”

“that’s what fucking laundry is for, you idiot.”

eren goes for a punch, low and hooked, aiming for the gut. jean catches it though, laughing, the fabric in his hand warm and kind of tickly where it brushes against eren’s bare side.

jean hauls him real close, kisses his ear, and says, “i’ll wash it, just let us keep it, yeah?”

“yeah,” eren concedes, dropping from the balls of his feet, cursing the way he always leans _in_ to jean, rather than away from him.

he still flicks jean off though, once he’s padding back to his room in the nude and he hears a muffled, “put on a fucking hoodie, you exhibitionist hippie.”


	6. idiot boys getting arrested together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> original prompt: can you please do erejean dumb boys getting arrested au pleaseeeee?
> 
> warnings for underage drinking, reckless drinking in general, small reference to potential sexual assault, violence, mentions recreational drugs/pills

the first time they get arrested they’re fifteen and half gone on a bottle of jean’s mother’s brandy, skidding down the street like bullets, the flimsy soles of their converse slipping on the wet cobblestone of the back alleys behind the pubs.

 

eren falls on his ass halfway to a parking lot where jean has already boxed himself in, and then what seems like a small army of pigs pile out of a people carrier and tackle them. jean has one of them holding him up by a hand fisted in his hair, his face pink and touched by cold exhaustion, laughing out of breath because _fuck_ — it took a whole van full of these guys to take the two of them.

eren lies and says he’s his brother, he’s visiting from out of town, he’s old enough to drink back home. he fumbles jean’s last name, and then they end up in the van together, wrists held in their laps by steel and something like stagnant fear, adrenaline weighing their arms down as it ebbs from their blood and turns to lead.

they don’t actually get arrested as much as just taken home and told off. jean’s mom throws a fit, calls eren a bad influence, shouts reaching a fever pitch when she realizes jean stole from _her_ liquor cabinet. eren has to sit there and watch the whole thing, shrinks about two jacket sizes smaller when she turns her scolding onto him.

eren’s uncle doesn’t even care, just shrugs and lets him in, tells him to sleep it off.

there’s a text on his phone, one of those shitty temporary pay as you go things, a small nod to the fact that eren doesn’t even think he’ll be here in another few weeks— he’ll either be back in foster care or off on his own somewhere, maybe grab a stick and an old picnic blanket, trek along the railroad and make his story an interesting one to tell.

_‘that was badass’_ , the text reads— and it wasn’t, really, but eren grins anyway

—

the second time they get arrested they’re seventeen and more than twice gone off a litre of cheap vodka, the kind that really does taste like it comes from potatoes— all dirty chemicals and grit.

eren ends up passed out on someone’s blowup bed the day before christmas, while jean has his first sexual encounter with a boy in the other room. eren bought the vodka as a sort of delayed gift for them both, seeing as eren’s never received a wrapped gift for about as long as he can remember.

jean walks with a limp the morning after when he comes out of the bedroom, shakes eren awake on the deflated mattress. eren’s cheek aches like he’s sporting a nice new shiner to it, and jean’s eyes are alive with something eren thinks might be drugs.

“we have to go dude, get up, it’s christmas,” he says, and eren groans like he’s dying as jean tugs him down the stairs and out of the apartment.

“it’s not even fucking daylight, you prick,” he mumbles, glaring up at the deep purple sky like it’s the cause of his pending hangover.

jean just keeps buzzing, bouncing on the balls of his feet like he’s just solved his biggest problem, like there was something keeping him bogged and weighed down before, and he suddenly figured it all out, can breathe like normal again.

eren doesn’t get it, but he’s cold and still drunk, so he stuffs his hands in his pockets and makes a seriously focused effort to continue walking in a straight line.

“you’ve had someone’s mouth on you,” jean says, stopping dead once they’re illuminated by one of the street lamps.

“wha—” eren gasps, chokes like a fish out of water, jean gripping his jaw hard enough for it to hurt.

it hurts even worse when he pokes at his cheek, which makes eren slap his hand away.

“what the fuck, man?”

“someone bit you in the face,” jean says, with a face like stone— serious and devoid of color.

eren touches his cheek. “it’s just a bruise, dude, those guys weren’t exactly friendly drunks.”

jean shakes his head, stumbles and almost upends them both when he walks eren back into a brick wall on the corner of the street.

he touches eren’s face again, only this time like he’s worried of it breaking. fuck the fucking sky and it’s slowly lightening horizon, because it’s making the hair around jean’s head look like a halo, and if he didn’t know jean was taking it in the ass about two hours earlier he wouldn’t even be entertaining the thought that it might feel kinda nice, albeit reckless, to kiss him when he’s frowning like this.

“you’ve got teeth marks dude, that’s not a punch.”

he almost does it, too— almost breaches that tiny gap between them and tests the waters, lets himself think he can blame it on the vodka. but then they’re startled apart by the alarmingly nearby shrill of a siren, and eren is too fucking exhausted to even begin to try running this time.

—

“you’re not turning my son into this street walking trash. he had pills in his pockets the other night, did you have anything to do with that?”

jean’s mother looks like some kind of angry god in his living room, her hair all wild like she hasn’t slept, like she’s prepared to tear apart cities to keep her son from whatever it is she thinks eren’s corrupting him to be.

his uncle is keeping a safe distance, sitting and looking down on eren like he gives half a shit about what he does. she’s furious, and eren respects her enough to feel bad about it, but the pills? eren’s never touched those things.

“no, mrs. kirstein.”

“you will keep my boy out of trouble, do you understand me? or you’re banned from our house,” she says, glaring at eren’s uncle when he laughs out of the corner of her vision.

“yes, mrs. kirstein,” he replies diligently, because fuck his uncle.

—

the third time eren gets arrested it’s on his own this time and he’s eighteen.

jean calls him at an ungodly hour in the morning, shocking eren awake by the mere sight of his name lighting up his phone, jolting him upright. they haven’t spoken as much lately— jean moved more in the way of nightclubs and pill-heads, while eren preferred staying home and playing resident evil in the dark.

it wasn’t so much a conscious separation— more of a gradual drift, the way the sea can pull you one way when you think you’re meant to go the other. try to fight it and you’ll run out of steam, at least that’s what eren thought at the time.

“i think i’m in trouble,” jean says, laugh caught on borderline manic hysteria, like he’s only forcing himself to do it to keep from crying or screaming, or something along those lines.

“where?” eren says, and he’s already halfway out the door, jacket in hand, counting change for a taxi.

the third time eren gets arrested it’s on an assault and battery charge.

the third time eren gets arrested it’s the literal kicking of a thirty year old man’s teeth in, shards of them caught right through his lips, blood on the soles of eren’s shoes.

the third time eren gets arrested he sees red, and while he’s being cuffed and carted away from the bar, jean is in tears, eyeliner smudged around the corner of his eyes, and a horrible rip in the fabric near the seat of his pants.

eren screams his voice away, and they let him off on mental instability, order him to do community service and emotional management counselling.

—

jean’s mother makes him coffee when he comes over next. she sits him down in her kitchen and holds her trembling hand over his on the table and says, “i think i was wrong about you.”

eren falls asleep in jean’s bed, their bodies curled together like string tangled in knots— a mess, but a sturdy one, at least.

—

the fourth time they get arrested is really jean’s third, but eren has stopped counting.

they’re twenty and jean is dressed up as ziggy stardust for halloween, eren as alex from a clockwork orange, and he’s acting the part— to a small, less violent degree. but apparently trashing an abandoned school when you’re drunk on halloween warrants arrest, and eren has stopped fucking caring by now.

jean grins at him in the station while they’re being booked— an overnight stay, no more being taken home to mommy and daddy at this age. jean looks like a fucking idiot, glittered face paint smeared down his cheeks, his teeth stained blue from whatever fruity cocktail he’d had before they left the town center.

they get put in a cell together, which seems like a stupid thing to do, but eren isn’t complaining.

—

eren had his first kiss with a girl named annie in the fourth grade.

eren had his second kiss with a girl named hitch at a party when he was sixteen, the girl that jean said was _‘the female version of that kid from the omen’_.

eren has his third kiss with jean in a jail cell downtown, both of their mouths smeared in blue and orange glitterpaint, jean laughing like the dopey fucking idiot he is when eren’s ridiculous set of fake eyelashes tickles his cheeks.

“i’ve wanted to do that for so long. since we were fifteen and i saw your dick in gym class,” jean murmurs, speaking all soft and gone like he’s high— his eyes closed, his smile sloppy and serene, all at once.

“who the fuck wants to kiss someone after seeing their dick, dude?”

jean laughs when eren does, and then kisses him again and says, “i dunno, i just did.”

if he were a little less gone eren might try to add his own two bits. that he wanted to kiss jean that night he let that boy fuck him at that party on christmas eve, the night jean held his face and looked legitimately disturbed by the fact that someone had hurt eren, even by such an idiotic way as biting.

the words are there, but they’re like glue in the back of his throat, keeping it all lodged shut and quiet. he wants to say _‘i wanted to kiss you then, but i don’t think i really knew how scary it was until_ that night _’_ — but they don’t talk about _that night_. if you were to ask jean he’d say they’ve only been arrested three times.

which is true, but fuck semantics.

they fall asleep on the concrete slab they call a cot, wrapped up in each other, mouths foul on a night’s worth of binge drinking and bummed cigarettes. when they wake up, jean has eren’s bowler hat on, his stupid bony boy legs all wobbly and ridiculous looking in his body suit when he stands and stretches, but eren couldn’t find anyone he’d rather do the walk of shame with.

—

eren dreams about travelling the world with jean, about calling mrs. kirstein from payphones outside of motels, about accidentally wearing jean’s clothes because they fit him the same as his own.

he dreams about jean’s pockets and how they used to be filled with pills, about what it would feel like to lose jean the way people lose their minds— slow and infuriating. 

eren loses what was left of his virginity to jean in a motel, go figure, and he does _think_ about calling jean’s mom, but he doesn’t actually _do_ it. 

she’s been calling them both _'her boys'_ now, and something about it makes eren feel like a kid again, the way he imagines christmas and school holidays might have felt if he had something to look forward to at the time. like he might not actually be forgotten.

"you’re still a bad influence on me," jean says, his voice slurred through the haze of spiced wine and hot pie.

they’re twenty three now and less like dancing sparks and more like glowing embers— the calm  _after_ the storm, which everyone seems to forget about. they balanced each other out, oddly enough.

eren kisses him, right in front of his mother in their living room, and licks the red right off the back of his tongue. 

they might never have been good together, but they’re _together_ , and that has to count for something.

"maybe i am," eren concludes, and decides it might not matter, as he opens his first ever wrapped present.


	7. genderqueer/genderfluid eren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from tumblr prompt: "I looove your ficlets with eren wearing lipgloss, and eren in a dress. could you write more about eren experimenting with gender and femme presentation? Preferably with Jean (but heck, i'll take erejearmin too)?"
> 
> \---
> 
> jean/eren | modern au with i guess genderqueer/genderfluid eren, if you want to give it a name. please note that eren still identifies as male in this | warnings for verbal/sexual harrassment, broken families, sexual content, anddd other things along these lines, please read at your own discretion | rated 
> 
> \---

It’s just about evening now, the hazy fog from the city vents in the street rising into the air, the way the windows all fog once their neon lights are switched on outside. It’s not a bitter cold, but it’s chilly enough. Jean tugs his beanie down over his ears, glances over at Eren and wonders if he isn’t freezing in what he’s wearing. He’s got his parka on, at least.

They get to the overpass where Eren usually goes to buy concert tickets from a seedy little man with a mustache, in what looks to be a building that was once a laundromat, rusted square shapes on the floor all lined up along each wall. It’s a long archway, with the rail from the train station rumbling overhead, and it’s just wide enough to be pitch black if it weren’t for the lights from the businesses set up under here.

One of them is a Chinese takeaway store, the windows seeming to sweat, dripping when the fogged heat from the food cooking inside builds up on it. There’s two guys that walk out, obviously drunk, one of them swinging around a bag of food, and Jean’s blood immediately runs cold, preparing, waiting.

“What the fuck?” the one with the food says, stopping and letting the bag stop swinging, until it's hanging limp and pathetic at his side.

The other one seems less alarmed and more skeazy about it, says, “Hey sugar, what you hidin’ up under there?”

Eren hunches his shoulders, as if he can block the words this way, and walks exactly the same as he was before these pigs even entered the picture. Jean bites down hard enough on his tongue to draw blood, frozen into walking in tandem with Eren, but he’s lurched back into action when the one without the food takes a step backwards, turning back towards Eren.

Jean grabs Eren by the bicep, his parka rustling beneath the tightness of his grip. Eren grunts a little, but he doesn’t even look up as Jean hauls him away. They’re nearly out of the tunnel now, Jean occasionally checking over his shoulder to see that they weren’t followed, hating himself for not even saying anything to that fucking degenerate prick. As his head’s turned he loosens his grip, slips his hand down until it’s stuffed in Eren’s pocket, alongside his. Eren slips his fingers between Jean’s, and Jean shouldn’t be surprised that it’s only him whose palms are sweaty - Eren is fine.

In fact, Eren seems fucking amused when Jean looks down at him. Eren starts to laugh and Jean lets go of his hand, lets his fall from Eren's pocket in slow confusion.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Because you’re ridiculous,” Eren says evenly.

“I didn’t even say anything!” Jean shouts, because his heart is still pounding, rattling his ribs.

“Why’d you pull me away, then?”

“Because you don’t need that shit, Eren,” Jean says weakly, pleading almost.

Eren begins walking away with a somewhat dismissive scoff. Jean just stands there and frowns at him, until he realizes how far he’s walked, sprinting up behind him. When he reaches his side again he slips his hand back into Eren’s pocket, out of instinct more than anything else.

“What?” Jean barks, less angry than before, but still a little defensive. Eren keeps biting his lips like he’s trying not to smile.

“You’re holding my hand again,” Eren says.

Jean runs his his thumb along the tendons of Eren’s fingers, over his knuckles. “So fucking what?” he grumbles, struggling to tug his beanie back over his ears with only one hand.

Eren seems smug about it, which is a good thing, actually. Jean can handle being the weak one in these types of situations, as long as Eren doesn’t get mad at him for it.

.

Jean can be smug too, though. Especially since he’s deduced that he now knows everything there is to know about Eren. There’s maybe small nuances, confusing emotions that he can’t decipher, decisions he isn’t sure how to interpret. But as far as knowing someone’s secrets, well enough that they feel safe with you, that members of your own family jokingly refer to you as ‘the Eren Jaeger historian’ - it’s something Jean is kind of proud of.

For example, his years of continuous attempts at understanding Eren have finally started to pay off. Jean gets it now, and he knows when and where it started, too. When Eren was a kid, maybe only seven or eight, he would wear Mikasa’s Sunday dresses in their parents room when it was just the two of them left alone. They would rifle through their mother’s makeup pouches, Eren curiously asking what every little shiny plastic tube contained, and Mikasa confidently pretending she could identify them all. Eren said he remembered her never being all that interested, which Jean has since confirmed from the source herself - she only did all that because she knew Eren didn’t want to go in there alone.

At the time, in Eren’s memory, she seemed far more curious about putting makeup on him. When they were nearly crossing the bridge into high school, Mikasa could get away with buying certain things to give to Eren. It was her that taught him how to apply mascara without poking his eye out, apparently. Jean never thought about it then, but more recently realized that she’d hardly worn it herself - that she must’ve looked up how, solely so she could pass on this kind of sisterly knowledge to her brother.

Once they were in high school it was just kind of a casually accepted part of who he was. The mascara, the bracelets, the color on his nails - which started from purplish faded sharpie and morphed into actual lacquered polish. To Jean Eren just seemed like he hated everyone except for his sister, like he was defensive when he didn’t need to be - nobody ever made fun of him there, though Jean assumed it was because they were too afraid to.

It was Jean being sick of feeling sorry for him that tipped the scales, the breaking point being confronting Eren on why he was the way that he was, Eren spitting in his face and calling him an asshole, Jean nearly crying because he didn’t mean it that way, just wanted to know why he was always alone after Armin’s grandfather forced him to go to the Catholic school. Jean’s mother coached him into going over to see Eren, to apologize in person, which has now become Eren’s favorite story to tell people that don’t know them very well, whenever they go out. He picked a dandelion from Eren’s own yard before he knocked on the door ( _"a fucking weed,"_  Eren always laughs when retelling), barely fifteen years old and shaking in his torn up converse on Eren’s doorstep, and then they were dating by 10th grade.

It was like being with Jean made him more confident, somehow. The whole school knowing that Eren had a boyfriend seemed to make it easier to accept why he began wearing loose shorts that looked more like skirts, why his chapstick began to get progressively glossier, smelling sweet. The first time Jean ever kissed him, he tasted it, like a strawberry cupcake, if there ever were such a thing. Eren grinned at Jean after, all rumpled in his clothes that never fit, piled into Jean’s lap on his bed. He wiped the smear of the gloss from Jean’s mouth and called him an asshole, and it didn’t take Jean long to realize that the tiny, sharp pains he got in his chest whenever he looked at Eren meant he was in love with him.

-

The streets get a little quieter as they continue to walk, though this deep into downtown it’s never truly quiet. There’s less bars in this area, more industrialised commerce, the city convention center just around the corner, some restaurants perched in between floors of businesses. Speckled in between these concrete hunks are old factory restoration projects, spaces that have turned into lofts, which is where they’re headed right now.

It’s Mikasa’s house warming party. Of course, it isn’t a house, but it’s the apartment her and Annie have been saving up for, waiting until they could work for a while after high school ended to take the plunge and finally leave Annie’s parent’s house, where Mikasa had been staying in refuge for the past year or two.

Jean can tell Eren is nervous. It isn’t like he doesn’t talk to Mikasa all the time, but this will be the first time he’s seen her in a little while. Eren seems dead-set on moving downtown now too, even if he does seem to get more verbal slack in public here than at home. Back in their shithole of a town the people are too scared to say anything - he’s not as incapable as he may sound on paper, in fact the only fights he’d ever gotten in were ones he started himself.

Jean thinks it’s more anxiety at finally being able to show Mikasa that he’s okay. He’s wearing a skirt beneath his parka, a black pleated one, nothing too short. They look like the skirts that the girls wore at Armin’s Catholic school, just dusting above his knees, the parka covering most of it, but not enough to hide that it’s a skirt, not like that was ever his intention. He’s wearing these knee high socks as well with black boots over them, so the only bit of skin showing are his skinny, bony knees, starkly pale against the contrast of the black fabric that frames them.

They aren’t even girls’ socks, Jean prides himself on being able to identify now, as if knowing your significant other’s wardrobe by heart is something to boast about. They’re the diabetic socks he bought, the ones that stretch easier over his calf muscles, the exact same kind Jean’s uncle wears to keep his circulation from fucking up too badly. Still, they stop right below his knee, introducing where leg turns to thigh, and Jean wonders if men on the street only react angrily when they realize they were staring for too long at a boy, after skimming their eyes up another few inches. Eren has long since hardened to this kind of behavior, but Jean isn’t quite there yet.

-

After Jean had first kissed Eren, it was like flipping a nervous system switch in him somewhere, like Jean’s mouth held some kind of terrifying secret within it. Eren was never afraid of himself - he has never been timid about what he likes - but he seemed so worried about scaring Jean off. As if Jean hadn’t noticed over the year they’d been dating, all the subtle changes, the different things Eren would wear that boys usually don’t. As if the difference between skirt-like shorts and actual skirts was really that big of a visual leap.

When it first happened, Eren told Jean to wait on his bed, which was alarmingly awkward and difficult to do. Jean had squirmed around, twitching in waiting, until Eren came back into his room in an actual, undeniable skirt this time - a little tartan one that looked like something Mikasa wouldn’t be cause dead in, which only told Jean’s short-firing brain later that Eren bought it for himself.

He had some nameless punk band t-shirt on over it, one that actually fit him a little tighter, outlining the narrow yet square set of his shoulders. His legs aren’t curvy, they never were, but the boxiness of the skirt made Jean’s stomach do a pleasant flip. It was a contrast, but it wasn’t - it fit Eren, in ways that Jean, even now, couldn’t articulate properly.

Eren crawled into Jean’s lap, his cheeks burning, looking so terribly shy and nervous about the whole thing. Jean just held his face, kissed him until he was less tense, licked Eren’s cheeks, moaning at how hot they were. Eren’s hips began to twitch, and he whined like he was begging for something, so Jean finally dropped his hands. He skirted his open palms up Eren’s bare thighs, watching the way it rucked up Eren’s skirt. He looked up at Eren, grinning stupidly, and said the only thing he could think of at the time, which was, “I like it.”

It was the first time they’d ever touched each other like this, the first time Jean ever realized how badly he wanted to. It felt like a swift kick to the gut, holding Eren’s leaking dick in his hand, the fabric of the skirt barely concealing it, jerking Eren off in his lap while Eren whimpered into Jean’s mouth. Eren made a mess of his hand, grinning like he was high, showing the sharp points of his teeth, which Jean thought some people must never get to see, and strangely felt sorry for those who were so unfortunate. He got so caught up in marvelling at Eren’s smiling mouth that he didn’t even realize that Eren was undoing the zip on his jeans, that he’d begun to stroke Jean with what he’d caught of his own come.

Eren tried to lift the skirt with one hand, while still jerking Jean, as if it would get in the way or something. Jean’s response was to swat Eren’s hand away, leaving the skirt alone and panting out desperate  _‘hah’_ s and curses when he was nearly there. The tickle of the tartan against the head of his dick coupled with the slick warmth of Eren’s palm sent him over the edge, coming so hard it probably would have shot in their faces if Eren’s skirt wasn’t there.

After, Eren had curled up around him, little debauched balls of tissues littered around them on the bed. He crawled up Jean’s torso, licked his thundering pulse, and said, “You ruined my skirt, asshole.”

-

With the amount of time it takes them to get to Mikasa’s place, Jean grumpily vows that next time they’re getting a taxi from the station. The warmth of the place when Mikasa opens the door hits Jean directly in the face, and he pulls off his beanie while Mikasa hugs Eren so tightly that Eren squeaks. When she lets him go, Eren takes off the parka, revealing his fitted yet oversized sweater, the black clingy one. He tugs on the hems at his wrists to cover his hands as Annie gives him a one handed hug, her other hand holding a beer.

Armin runs over, shrieking like a banshee at the sight of them, and then nearly tackles Eren when he jumps on him. Jean gets all of the secondary hello’s, the more subdued ones, which he isn’t complaining about. Mikasa gets Jean a drink, and then he ends up wandering more towards Sasha and Connie, the two of them sitting on Mikasa and Annie’s dining table, Connie’s drink resting on a box they still have yet to unpack.

Jean just watches, warm from more than just the heat in here, as everyone melds together, fitting. He catches the tail end of a barely heated argument between Armin and Annie in the kitchen, and then watches as Mikasa fusses with Eren’s hair, muttering beneath her breath about it needing a cut. He looks like a puppy beneath her hands, shaking her off while grinning embarrassedly.

“He looks good,” Sasha says, breaking the silence and following Jean’s gaze, settled right on Eren.

“Yeah, he does,” Jean agrees, though he swallows the urge to say  _‘he always has’_ , because he knows Sasha doesn’t mean it that way, “He’s missed her, though.”

“Of course he has,” Connie pipes in, “Just a good thing Grisha is gone now, he was like cancer for the both of them.”

Jean’s forehead twitches at the mention of that name, but he keeps his focus on Eren. Sasha seems to pick up on it, as she always does.

“I wish Eren could’ve left with Mikasa,” she says, resting a comforting hand on Jean’s shoulder, as if it was Jean whose life got fucked over by Grisha Jaeger. “But at least he had you.”

“ _Has_  me, I’m still here,” Jean says defensively, and then feels stupid for it.

Sasha rolls her eyes. “Well, duh.”

Jean always feels stupid for getting defensive - whether it’s saying he’ll always be there for Eren, or pulling him away from drunk assholes on the street - mainly because Eren doesn’t need it. It’s something Jean’s been working on, but he’s still growing out of seeing Eren as he was in that house, after Mikasa was unceremoniously disowned at the command of their bullshit excuse of a father, their mother left to quietly mourn on her own. Eren felt betrayed at the time, by her, for not standing up for them, though he’s much closer to his mother now. Mikasa and her still have some mending to do.

-

Jean nearly killed Grisha once. He’d had the tire iron in his hand, only turned around and forced himself to go back into his room when he realized keeping Eren company was more important.

Eren had shown up at Jean’s back door in the rain, huddled into his parka, his shoulders shaking. His eyes were wild, red rimmed and angry looking, and Jean couldn’t tell the difference between the tears and the rain. Even his lips were raw and sore looking, like he’d been biting them to keep from sobbing, an extension of the bad habit he has at gnawing them unless he has gloss or chapstick on.

Jean pulled him in from the cold, stripped off his jacket for him and tossed it onto the back of his desk chair, reaching down toward the bed with shaky hands to mute the television playing in the background. He stood, tossing the remote back to the bed, and then held Eren tightly to his chest, his palm cradling Eren’s rain-damp head. It took a minute or so, but when Eren finally broke down and cried, deep, heavy sobs that shook his entire body, Jean felt it like someone had poured fire into his veins.

Eren didn’t even have to say it was his dad - Jean just knew. No one got to Eren, ever, except for Grisha.

He began to ramble wetly, sobbing in between words, all while Jean guided him down to the bed, smacking the remote away to make room, taking out some of his anger on it. Eren was wearing his blue striped pajama pants and a tshirt, like he’d been ready to go to bed before all the shit hit the fan, and it made Jean ache to think that it had ended in such a way.

“Mikasa’s gone,” Eren slurred, voice thick with tears, “He kicked her out, told her to leave. I was trying on a dress she didn’t want, and he saw, and he said he never asked for two daughters, said he never even asked for one.”

“Jesus,” Jean had murmured, shocked and angry - because why they fuck would they have adopted her if she wasn’t wanted?

“She didn’t even say anything,” Eren cried, his wet face crumbling, “He blamed her. For me. Like she ruined his only son, like there’s something wrong with me, and it’s her fault.”

“There is nothing wrong with you, Eren, look at me,” Jean tugged Eren’s pinched chin upward, sliding both of his hands towards either side of Eren’s neck, cradling his jaw. “There is  _nothing_  wrong with you.”

Eren didn’t say anything, only nodded silently, squeezing his eyes closed. Jean kissed him, angry at how hot his lips were, licking past his teeth to soothe him. It was like he’d been biting all the blood to them just to be able to deal with whatever pain his father felt like inflicting on them, again. There were even little black smudges beneath his eyes, which Jean wiped at with his thumbs. He never wore waterproof mascara, Jean remembered, because he complained that it felt too ‘heavy’, or too obvious. Jean had no idea what it meant at the time, still doesn’t, but he agreed. Now he was happy for it, weirdly so, like being able to see the makeup run on his puffy face was proof that he was okay, he’s still the same Eren he fell in love with - that Grisha might have power, but not enough to break him completely.

The night progressed in stuttered stages. After Jean watched Eren fitfully fall asleep, curled around the pillow Jean always used, his face pressed into it, it was like someone re-ignited the fire of rage within him. He went into a frenzy, tiptoeing out of his room and then into the garage, rummaging through every box and plastic bin he could find until he pulled out the tire iron, examined the sharp, curved edge of it and walked back down to his room. He made it two steps out of the door of his room, the one that led out the back into the rain, and then deflated. Eren didn’t need this, he’d realized. He needed a pillow that smelled like Jean to help him sleep, he needed Jean to hold him until he was too tired to cry anymore. Jean left the tire iron in his room by the door, in case there was more Eren had yet to tell him, and then forgot about it by morning. Jean finally fell asleep that night with their legs tangled together, Jean’s arm snug around Eren’s waist, holding him from behind.

-

Back when they were young, before they’d even kissed, only a few months into dating, if that’s what you could even call it, Jean had asked Eren the question he’d wanted to ask when he made Eren spit in his face only a few months before.

They were in Jean’s room, in the basement, huddled beneath a sheet, the fabric tucked tight enough around them that it seemed to inflate and deflate with their breath. Eren sat cross legged in front of Jean, Jean holding his knees to his chest defensively.

“Do you wish you were a girl?” he asked Eren quietly.

Eren frowned like he was mildly offended, which made Jean’s stomach lurch in panic.

“No. I don’t wish about being anything,” Eren replied sternly.

Jean dropped his knees then, disarmed by Eren’s self confidence, crossing his legs and scooting forward until their shins were aligned. It was hot beneath the sheets, no cracks for any of their shared air to escape. Eren had mascara on at the time, and periwinkle blue nail polish on. Jean only knew the name of the color because he thought to ask. It’s what Eren tells him now is the reason he fell in love so quickly - because Jean bothered to ask him things.

“Good,” Jean said, his face burning, and not from the heat of their trapped breath, “I like you the way you are.”

Eren smiled so quickly that it seemed like someone slapped it onto him, like he was even a little surprised by the force of it, immediately looking down at his lap. He had the hybrid skirt/shorts on again, which meant the spread of his legs where he crossed them wasn’t revealing as much as Jean was slightly ashamed to admit he’d hoped to see. Ever since they had gym together, Jean developed a sort of thing for Eren’s thin, toned thighs.

“You’re such an asshole,” Eren said, his smile making the words sound more like a blissful laugh. Jean almost kissed him for the first time right there, but he was too nervous and giddy, warm all over from the tiny bit of bodily contact they had at their knees and feet. And anyway, Jean’s happy he waited - that particular flavor of lip gloss will always, always mean something to him.

-

It took Jean a while to understand what Eren meant that day, huddled beneath a sheet like boys playing forts, sharing secrets - how something so seemingly vulnerable could be the strongest part of a boy so otherwise easy to break. He hadn’t known at the time that it was all Grisha, but it’s all come together now.

Eren falls into Jean a few drinks into the night, wedging himself between Jean and the arm of the couch, half in his lap. Mikasa is standing, taking pictures of the heaps of bodies piled throughout their brand new living room, breaking in the couch and the soft fluffy rug, socked feet scuffing the new wood flooring. Armin ends up lifting his glass, half drunkenly shouting with red cheeks and shining eyes, “To family!”

Jean meets his toast, all of them do, and his eyes end up lingering on Mikasa, warmed by the tiny, secret way she smiles at him, like he’s a part of this. Eren sleepily nuzzles Jean’s neck, starts to fade into exhaustion, and mumbles, “Let’s stay here.”

Jean thinks maybe, one day, they will for good. At least for tonight they can.


	8. hipster jean/grieving eren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from tumblr:
> 
> jean/eren | combination of about four different anon requests, hipster jean, eren going through some kind of life tragedy, eren/jean with a beard, and the one anon that yelled in all caps for anything erejean (lol ilu) | warnings for a lot of dumb shit, idk this is a mess. mentions alcohol, recreational drug use, piss poor coping mechanisms, bad humor, very minor mentions of suicide and vomit, uhhhh. i think that’s it | rated, little over 5k

“That’s it, we’re going this time.”

Mikasa slams her hand where her keys rest on the kitchen counter, and the metallic scratch against the cheap plastic laminate makes Eren cringe.

“There is literally nothing I would rather do less,” Eren says, though it’s a lie. He’s getting a little tired of all the nothing, actually.

“Nope. You’ve been in a funk all week, it’s put me in a funk. We are funked and we need to get out of this apartment,” she proclaims matter-of-factly, shoving her feet into a pair of worn out black boots, the only pair she’d brought over when she decided she was going to be staying with Eren for a little while.

“We are _funked_ , that’s a new one.”

“Eren,” Mikasa despairs, standing squeezing at her jaw, sighing when her hand drops from it. Eren knows this is as much for her as it is for him, but really -- Jean Kirstein, of all people. He keeps inviting Eren to his fucking parties, but Eren has dodged them thus far. “Please can we do this? I really think we both need to do this.”

Eren pretends to be more put-upon than he is, standing and sulking over to grab his hoodie from the back of the couch. It isn’t that he’s trying to be difficult, he just seems to have forgotten how to want things for himself. Or that he’s allowed to. Something along those lines.

“I just don’t see why this, I mean - who has a housewarming party a year after they move into the place? We could just go to a bar.”

Mikasa, with a little too much shaky energy, tugs on Eren’s hoodie to right it from sticking awkwardly inside-out against one side of his neck. Eren huffs at her like a puppy, but she seems unaffected. Distracted, actually. She’s panicking.

“We are not going to a bar and you know why. And you have a housewarming party whenever you’re ready to show it off. That’s the whole point, some people take a while to get there.”

Eren glances around at the piles of unwashed laundry that litter the floors, the cluttered mess of cables stuffed in between the side of the couch and the cushion where he’s been reluctant to move from for the past week and a half. Mikasa’s hands shake when she pats her pockets and mumbles out _"phone, keys, wallet"_ enough times for her to seem more than a little unhinged.

“Hey,” Eren says, approaching her and squeezing her shoulders with the thickest part of his palms. “We’re going. We’ll un-funk, it’s alright.”

“Yeah,” she says, smiling. It’s a start.

-

The thing about Jean is he’s a prick, but not in the way he was in high school where he oozed this aura of privilege, and every word out of his mouth seemed a punch-able offense. It’s more in the way that he’s successful and humble about it. In the way that he lives about as downtown as you can get, in a condo that must cost him a small fortune in mortgage and HOA fees, and actually - a year to kit it out to the way it looks now is impressive.

Eren stuffs his fists further into his pockets and curses beneath his breath when Mikasa immediately skips over to Annie. Annie hugs her like you might hold a small, breakable child - both hands cradling the back of her head, whispering something soft into her ear, face pinched in concern. To her credit, Mikasa smiles like it’s easy when she pulls away, and Eren can’t be too mad about what he already knew would happen. For the first time in a while he lets himself miss Armin, even though he knows Armin is living the proverbial late-college dream on his third consecutive exchange program in Europe.

“Hey, man, thank you for coming,” Jean says, sounding actually pleasantly surprised, having come right up to Eren. Eren awkwardly puts his hand out to be shaken, which he assumes is commonplace in these kinds of social situations, but it gets squished between them when Jean gives him a half hug with the hand that isn’t holding two beers between long, bony fingers.

“It’s all good,” Eren says, smiling as best he can and taking the extra beer from Jean when he offers it. He glances up to Jean’s face to make sure his expression of gratitude was seen, and then does a double take because Jean - apparently to go with his new blonde bamboo hardwood floors and industrial furnishings - has grown a beard.

“Whoa,” he says without thinking.

Jean scratches at it, smiles lopsidedly down at the ground. “Yeah, I know. Sasha says it makes me look homeless.”

“You sure showed her, then,” Eren mutters, still staring curiously at Jean’s face. There’s something different about it. Yeah, there’s a slightly overgrown bush on it, but it’s not just that. One edge of his mustache curls a little into his lip, and his jaw seems sharper, somehow. It’s his mouth, Eren realizes, and then quickly looks away when he recognizes the pleasant churn in his gut is actual physical attraction.

“Yeah,” Jean laughs sheepishly, and jesus- his teeth are perfectly straight and white, and Eren self consciously tongues at his own protruding canines. He suddenly wishes he had a mint, and then feels stupid about it, goes back to watching Jean survey the expanse of this ridiculously large living room like it’s a kingdom he conquered. “Half of the furniture is repurposed, she’d just say I went dumpster diving for it all.”

“Huh,” Eren says noncommittally, not really processing the conversation anymore. Jean has this clingy v-neck sweater that’s textured like a cat fresh out of a bath, soft but a little wild and spiky. He also has slim fitting slacks on that fall right to his bare ankles, and Eren didn’t realize he had a thing for hipsters until he identified that’s what Jean is now - Jean, the same kid that had every color of Ralph Lauren polo shirt in high school, the same kid that looked like he was born on the tennis court of a country club.

“You look great,” Eren says, and then blanches the color of stone when he realized he meant to say the _condo_ looks great. “I mean, the place does. Decor. You and condo. Look, uh. Fuck.”

Jean laughs, loud enough to catch the attention of the some of the more muted mingling party guests off to the side, and Eren blushes despite himself as he swigs an extra large mouthful of beer. This was a fucking mistake, he should leave.

“You look great too,” Jean says, with this infuriating little half smile over the lip of his own beer bottle, his throat bobbing as he takes a drink after, and Eren’s first instinct is to take it as a joke. He’s been wearing the same pair of jeans for nearly two full weeks now, and he’s down to his last packaged cotton tshirt that he buys because it’s easy and cheap, and all of that coupled with the same black band hoodie he’s had since he was fifteen _surely_ must mean that Jean is joking.

“Ha ha,” Eren says in mockery of his own appearance, and Jean looks almost offended on his behalf.

“I wasn’t kidding,” Jean says, quietly sincere, and Eren’s throat gets tight. He’s about two inches from a panic attack until Mikasa clocks it, comes scooting over with Annie in tow to his rescue.

“Your place is insane,” Annie says in her confusingly unamused tone to Jean, and Mikasa nods in agreement, all while discretely eyeing Eren to make sure he isn’t about to spontaneously combust in some way. “Like, I didn’t even know they made sheep big enough to turn into that rug.”

Annie points to the enormously soft and fluffy looking rug that covers a solid third of the room’s bare width, and Eren swallows a laugh when he envisions the gigantic beast that Annie thinks it came from. It’s the tiniest things that seem the funniest.

Jean does laugh, and then Annie does too, because - right, it was meant to be a joke. Ha ha.

“It’s actually faux Mongolian fur, no animals were harmed in the process of furnishing this room, I promise,” Jean says, and Eren wonders vaguely if he’s a vegan or not. He doesn’t have the faintest idea, really, he doesn’t know Jean at all anymore. He thought he knew Jean back when he was a spoiled little shit who had everything handed to him on a silver platter, but then maybe Eren had that wrong too.

“It really is nice,” Mikasa adds, gazing wistfully up to the dangling light bulbs wrapped in yarn, at the pieces of seemingly bespoke art pinned into the mortar between the bricks of the walls. Eren looks at her and feels the strongest urge to cry. She would be so much happier somewhere like this, yet she refuses to leave Eren, especially now.

“I think so,” Jean says, far more modestly than the words suggest. Eren is snapped from his empathetic trance by the warmth of Jean’s hand pressing gently on the small of his back, nudging him towards the large open plan kitchen area. “Please eat, I can’t keep all this food.”

Annie tugs Mikasa towards the small paddling pool full of hummus, and Eren blurts to Jean, “Do you eat meat?”

Jean laughs, again, a little less startled by Eren’s seemingly random thought process and more amused by it. “I do, but don’t tell Annie,” he says, nudging Eren with his shoulder with that stupid lopsided grin and winking horribly, and Eren realizes this is it - this is when, how and where he’s going to break in two.

-

They end up all piled into various cushy corners of an otherwise cold living space, mostly congregated around the cluster of deep set couches that frame the monstrous fake sheep rug, and Eren is reminded - not for the first time tonight, by any means - that he really doesn’t like people, generally. Especially in groups where alcohol is involved.

“You know that means you’re sexually frustrated, right?” Connie asks with obnoxious volume as he gestures at Eren’s hands, and Eren glares at him, curling his fingers away from where he was previously picking at the label of his beer.

Sasha smacks him upside the head, nearly knocking his hat off his head. “What are you, fifteen?”

“What, it’s true!” Connie whines defensively, righting his hat. It’s an old golf thing that looks like it better suited an old Welsh farmer in its heyday. “It’s like scientifically proven to be true, dude.”

“No it isn’t,” Jean says, with this half baked little laugh that makes Eren shiver. He hasn’t had more than two beers the whole night, Eren’s noticed, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t snuck off somewhere to smoke. Old habits die hard, and surely _something_ from high school must have stuck.

“It is! Jaeger, when’s the last time you got laid?” Connie rounds on him.

“None of your fucking business,” Eren barks, while Annie monotonously drones in the background about how inappropriate Connie always is.

“Your defensive tone speaks volumes,” Connie smirks over his fucking neon green martini, and Eren stops caring so much when he notices that everyone’s looking at Connie like he’s an idiot. Good, everyone else agrees then.

“Hey, let’s play some games or something,” Bertl pipes in, and then Connie’s voice cracks when he shrieks about spin the bottle, and Sasha successfully manages to knock the hat clear off his head this time when she hits him.

They don’t play spin the bottle, much to Connie’s sulking dismay, but Jean has apparently invested in every expansion of Cards Against Humanity. He doesn’t even flinch when Eren reveals it was him that admitted he would happily die by way of Harry Potter erotica, which somehow evolves into an argument over the legitimacy of who could ever be good enough for Hermione when the films made her too perfect, and that tumbles into a discussion about female representation in the media (led, unsurprisingly, by Annie), and Eren excuses himself to go drink tap water in the bathroom.

He doesn’t expect Jean to follow him, but he does. He doesn’t expect Jean to be handing him an empty mason jar, but he does. Eren stares at it like it’s the world’s most difficult puzzle.

“For the water?” Jean supplies, and oh- Eren hadn’t realized he’d actually said all that outloud.

“I think I’m drunk.”

“Yeah,” Jean says, almost fondly, as he guides Eren’s wobbly hand so he can fill the mason jar with water, and then Eren gets it. It’s a cup, for drinking. Why wouldn’t it be.

Eren gulps the entirety of the water down, and then when he’s heaving in gasps of air, he blurts, “Our dad died two weeks ago. Mom isn’t doing a funeral because she can’t afford it, and I think Mikasa is waiting for me to kill myself.”

“Oh,” Jean says gravely, letting his hand drop from where it was previously resting on the edge of the sink.

Eren is about to leave, sobered just enough by the admission to realize he fucked up, but Jean’s gentle voice stops him.

“Do you want to?”

Eren hadn’t realized Jean closed the bathroom door behind them. It’s small in here, but only compared to the rest of the house, and really only because Jean is close enough to Eren that he can feel the heat coming off his body, or he thinks he can. Jean keeps looking down at where he’s playing with the zipper of Eren’s hoodie, only glancing up when Eren stands quiet for a little too long.

“Want to what?” Eren asks, and the alcohol must have sloshed his brain enough to make this all infinitely more difficult than it needs to be. Eren quietly hopes it’s an invitation to fuck.

“Kill yourself,” Jean clarifies, and now Eren feels stupid for bringing it up.

“Oh. No, shit. No. I didn’t even really like my dad, I just.” Eren shrugs helplessly, swaying on his feet.

“Doesn’t that make it worse?” Jean continues playing with the zipper, and when the backs of his fingers brush the cheap cotton of Eren’s tshirt, his stomach lurches. It feels good, but he’s too drunk for this.

“Make what worse? Quit talking in fuckin riddles, man.”

“Leaving things unfinished like that,” Jean says, like it’s obvious. Like Eren hasn’t felt so fucking empty the past however many days, trying to figure out why he feels nothing, and why nothing feels so terrible.

“You got really hot over the last few years,” Eren rambles drunkenly after what is probably an awkward amount of silence, nodding like he’s trying to prove it’s the truth when Jean looks confused as all get out, and then tacking on a casual, “Hey, do you have any weed?”

“No, man, look,” Jean says, and then he’s grabbing either side of Eren’s head, keeping it steady. Eren hadn’t even realized it was bobbing so much. “Crash here tonight, alright? I have like three spare bedrooms.”

Then he does this thing. Eren’s surprised he’s coherent enough to even notice, but he looks like he’s about to regret something important, and then he’s leaning in to kiss Eren. His mouth is soft, warm. His mustache tickles Eren’s upper lip a little, which makes Eren smile like he's lost all control of his face when Jean pulls away.

“You’re hot too,” Jean says, and Eren doesn’t realize his eyes are closed until he notices that he hears Jean’s grin instead of seeing it - that quiet way someone says something private to you, the way their voice gets all warm and liquid. Eren doesn’t bother to open his eyes, just sleepily lets his forehead knock into Jean’s.

“Alright,” Eren agrees. To staying over, to being hot, to whatever. He suddenly feels ten pounds heavier and also fifty tons lighter in the same moment. It’s a little confusing, but then Jean kisses one of Eren’s closed eyelids, his beard scratching gently against Eren's cheek, and Eren decides he feels good enough to let it all happen. His back was getting a little tired of that couch anyway.

-

Eren wakes to an uncomfortably bright beam of sunlight hitting him in the face and a tangled swath of white and grey sheets piled up around various parts of his still clothed body. His head feels like someone’s taken a tire iron to the softest parts of it, and his throat feels like it’s made of ash. He pushes himself up on shaky elbows until he’s sitting and then nearly jumps out of his skin when something - some _one_ \- rolls over next to him.

“Why are you hiding like that? Jesus,” Eren groans, hands shielding his face from the pain of all this bright light and pale linens.

“Good morning to you too,” Jean says, his voice rough with sleep. He props himself up on the pillow he’d apparently been sleeping beneath, and when the sheets slip down over his chest Eren realizes he doesn’t have a shirt on. For the first time, possibly ever, Eren feels stupid for wearing clothes.

“Why don’t you have any fucking curtains?” Eren whines into his palms, instead of apologizing for being hungover in Jean’s bed after having a somewhat emotionally charged kiss that seems to have gone forgotten for the time being.

Jean _‘tsk’_ s at him, says something about Rome not being built in a day, and then he’s tugging on the hood of Eren’s sweatshirt, pulling him backwards.

Eren groans, hands still covering his face, not sure which way is up anymore. “Why is your bed moving?”

Jean turns to face him, Eren can’t see it, but he can feel it.

“It isn’t,” Jean says.

“How much did I drink?”

“A lot.”

“Did you seriously kiss me last night?” Eren says, with a fair bit of staged disgust that he hopes Jean will pick up on.

“You said I got hot,” Jean replies simply.

“Well you _did_ , but I mean-”

“Hey, c’mere,” Jean says, his voice quieter like it was before, tugging on Eren’s wrist until Eren is forced to face him. Jean looks at him kind of like he’s a part of this condo - something he’s proud of, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. He even fixes Eren’s wildly tousled hair, threading his fingers through it and smiling with the half of his face that isn’t now smashed into a pillow, his beard a little scraggly and uneven, not unlike his hair. “Did you want me to kiss you?” he asks with his hands all over Eren’s face, his neck. “It was kind of hard to tell. You were scrolling through thoughts like a slot machine.”

“I still do,” Eren says, in a moment of raw honesty, because as shallow as it feels to be overcome by physical attraction with someone you didn’t even think you liked less than a day ago, it’s distracting him from that other big ugly thing. It’s feeling something, and it’s actually good rather than bad. Eren would have honestly taken either, at this point.

Jean hums when he kisses Eren this time, which is annoying until he licks past Eren’s lips, finally slides his hands beneath Eren’s tshirt to rest warm on his belly. Eren’s heart is pounding so hard he’s sure Jean can feel it, even that far down. It feels rickety and unsteady, like the muscles of his chest might tear if it keeps up at this rate, but he’s lying down so it isn’t as dizzying as it should be.

“I’m sorry about your dad,” Jean murmurs quietly, and Eren flinches at the memory of blurting it all out the way he did. Sometimes the pain of remembering the embarrassing shit you said the night before is worse than feeling like death warmed up.

He squeezes his eyes shut, mimicking the way his hands grip Jean’s forearms beneath the covers as he says, “Can we not talk about this when I have an erection, please?”

“Can we talk about it later?” Jean asks, his fingers slipping down the front of Eren’s undone jeans.

“Sure, just. Fuck, _yeah_ ,” Eren exhales, keening an embarrassingly needy whine when Jean’s fist wraps around his dick. Connie was right, it has been a stupidly long amount of time.

Jean pushes Eren until he rolls onto his back, crawling over until he’s straddling his thighs. The sheets are a fucking mess again, and Eren thinks about telling him he has too many, he should use one of these as a damn curtain to shield the blinding white light from the windows, but he forgets how to use his mouth to make words when Jean pushes Eren’s shirt and hoodie up, bunches it under his arms so he can press a ridiculously light kiss on Eren’s nipple.

He moves himself down, tugging Eren’s jeans and boxers with him, until Eren is bare only on his middle and Jean’s sucking softly on the end of his cock, his long, thin fingers wrapped around the base. Eren immediately grips blindly for Jean’s hair, grabs enough of a fistful of it and fucks up into Jean’s face as much as Jean will allow, groaning every time he goes low enough to scratch his beard against his balls. Eren’s so overcome by this - this all consuming urge to feel something, to feel good - that he whines when he realizes he can’t part his legs any farther apart, trapped by denim, wanting to wrap his legs completely around Jean’s head, to just _feel_ him, everywhere.

“Hey, hey,” Jean says, in that soft way he did the other night when Eren was being ridiculous, crawling up the length of Eren’s body and shifting up when Eren flails to kick his pants off the rest of the way. He pulls his hoodie and shirt off by reaching over the back of his head, and when he’s completely naked and out of breath Jean calms him down by kissing him again, slowly.

“Can you be quiet if I fuck you?” Jean asks, and Eren’s immediately defensive nature pushes him to asking, “Why?”

“Because it’s the ass-crack of dawn and your sister is sleeping next door,” Jean says, before leaning down to suck on Eren’s pulse.

“Jesus, why are you up then? Why am _I_ up?”

“You don’t sleep well when you drink, or so I’ve been told,” Jean mumbles, pushing Eren’s legs apart with his knees.

“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned my sister with my dick stuck to your hip, can you please-”

“Why do you think you’re in here?” Jean asks, stopping everything suddenly enough for Eren’s head to spin a little.

“Because you ran out of spare beds?” Eren tries.

“Cute. But no, I thought you’d choke on your own vomit and no one would hear you or something, so I pulled you in here.”

“This is so sexy right now,” Eren says, feeling queasy and a little too exposed, all splayed out on his back for Jean, completely naked except for the little leather cord that holds his father’s key wrapped loosely around his neck.

“You’re welcome,” Jean says, sitting back on his heels with an obnoxious grin, stroking absently enough at the insides of Eren’s bare thighs to keep Eren hard. Eren even tilts his hips and grunts when Jean’s hand deliberately skates over the entire width of his dick to keep stroking literally _everywhere_ except for where he wants it.

“Fucking touch me already,” Eren complains, and then moans when Jean slides his thumb right up the underside of his dick.

“You know I’ve had a thing for you since high school, right?” Jean says, casually, like he isn’t watching the way Eren pushes his bony little hips up into his fist.

Eren stops writhing in his grip for a second to lean up onto his elbows. “What? No you didn’t.”

“I do, actually,” Jean says, and then he leans down far enough, pushing up Eren’s thighs so that he can lick along the small dip between Eren’s balls.

“Jesus,” Eren hisses, his hand going for Jean’s hair again. He still isn’t quite sure he believes Jean, but he’s tonguing one of Eren’s balls into his mouth, and Eren is so horny he thinks he’s already coming a little, dripping a sticky mess onto his own stomach.

Jean doesn’t fuck Eren, at least not in the way originally intended, instead spitting into his cupped palm and fisting them both at the same time. Which is good, because Eren thinks his pain threshold is a little low right now, and Jean is bigger than Eren thought he would be for being so tall and thin. Also it’s kind of nice to know Jean is feeling exactly the same thing as he is, that they’re in this together somehow, even though Eren isn’t entirely sure if that’s the case. Jean bites Eren’s lip when he comes, and then keeps it there, breathes hotly into Eren’s mouth as he finishes him off with his own spunk, which Eren only acknowledges is gross _after_ he’s made an even bigger mess of them both, and he realizes Jean hasn’t brushed his teeth yet - also that beard has been places beards typically do not go.

“Ugh, get off,” Eren shoves after Jean has his entire body collapsed on him, the come now combined on their stomachs at risk of glueing them together.

“Nuh uh,” Jean says, wrapping himself around Eren and laughing when he squeezes hard enough for Eren to squeak. They end up rolling around in a mess of sheets and bodily fluids, and Eren doesn’t realize he’s been laughing too until he’s out of breath from it, panting up at Jean and watching him in something like amazement when Jean brushes the dark, sweaty strands of Eren’s hair away from his eyes.

“So you waited until I was all weak and vulnerable to pounce, huh?” Eren asks, and Jean peers curiously at him.

“What?”

“Waiting until my dad dies and then taking advantage, for shame, Jean.”

“God, that’s not at all what happened-”

Eren grins, lurches upward to bite Jean’s mouth, turning it into an almost possessive kiss. “I’m kidding, shut up. You said you wanted to talk about it, this is me talking about it.”

Jean pulls away from Eren’s attempt at another biting kiss. “If even the _tiniest_ part of you believes that-”

“It doesn’t, Jean, come on,” Eren says, tugging at the back of his neck. “This probably would have happened a lot sooner if I saw you sooner, okay? It was a bad joke.”

“Yeah, I think your sister was getting tired of me asking her to drag you along,” Jean kisses at the curve of Eren’s jaw, where neck turns to throat, and Eren decides he likes the way Jean’s hair feels all bunched up in between his fingers. “Seriously though, you can talk to me about it.”

Jean looks down at him all sincere and focused, and Eren wants to laugh but doesn’t out of something like respect. Jean’s stupid not-quite-mohawk flops into his eyes all the time, which means he has to tilt his head everytime he wants to look at Eren seriously, and it reminds him of a puppy -- which weirdly makes him think of his sister and how bad he feels for turning her down all the time.

And he realizes then that maybe he doesn’t need to talk about this. Maybe it’s a selfish way of coping, but until Jean brought it up Eren hadn’t even thought about the mess he’s been - hell, he’d even been _happy_ , albeit hungover.

So he pushes at Jean’s shoulders, says, “Maybe later,” with a certain ounce of sincerity, and then tells Jean _he’s_ a fucking mess. Jean swats him in the ass with the brand new, still tagged hand towel he cleaned them off with for “dodging”, but Eren smiles through all of it, so Jean doesn’t push it much further than that.

-

“Are _you_ okay?”

Eren asks Mikasa over cheap cappuccinos, tries not to sound too condescending, because he is genuinely worried that she’s been so wrapped up in Eren’s feelings (or lack thereof) that she’s neglected herself.

“Huh? I’m fine, just. Mom, you know?”

Eren hums, because he does know, watching Mikasa stir little foamy swirls with the plastic spoon she picked up from the table. Neither of them really cared for their father, but Mikasa was more neutral about it than he was. But their mother. Sometimes Eren thinks Mikasa needs to occupy herself with other people’s problems. So he’ll let this one go.

Eren’s phone buzzes at his hip. He flicks Mikasa off silently when he catches her grinning at how fast he moves to check it.

 

_from asshole_   
_~local craft gallery tonight. beer and art, ill pick u up at 7_

 

_to asshole_   
_thanks for asking if i even want to go!~_

 

_from asshole_   
_~do u want to go?_

 

_to asshole_   
_sounds pretentious and zzz~_

 

_from asshole_   
_~free beer and full access to my body?_

 

_to asshole_   
_ok~_

 

“Why do you do that?” Mikasa asks, and Eren jumps when he realizes she’s close enough to be able to read. Upside down - she has alarmingly specific skill sets.

“Privacy, hello! I don’t do anything, what?”

“You always send one word texts. It’s obnoxious,” she says, pretending she isn’t amused by what she read, or that she even read it at all.

“ _You’re_ obnoxious,” is all Eren can think to reply with.

-

Jean buys a canvas print of what looks to be a butcher’s guide for cutting pig, except each anatomical section of meat is colored so grotesquely that it almost looks like a children’s puzzle. He’s convinced Jean only buys it because he feels bad that the young girl responsible for it hadn’t been producing all that much of a buzz. But Eren is also convinced Jean is a vegan sympathizer, which Jean aggressively denies.

It grows on Eren, though. In fact, he even decides where to put it back in Jean's condo, ignoring the way Jean lecherously stares at his ass and the way he’s got a hammer hanging out of the pocket of his jeans, brand new steel nails dangling from his lips.

“I’m almost positive I dreamed this once,” Jean comments, and Eren hangs it crooked on purpose, only to end up fixing it himself later when it starts to bug him.

Jean comes up behind him after he does, presses his scratchy mouth to the bumps of Eren’s spine on the back of his neck, but it isn’t a kiss - Jean is just breathing there, warm and steady. Eren wondered if he really was dodging, but it doesn’t feel that way, not to him. Something is better than nothing, and Jean just happened to be a really good something.

Eren only had one beer at the gallery. And it didn’t even have anything to do with Jean, he just knew when enough was enough.

“Bed?” Jean murmurs into his skin, hands wrapped around his middle, rocking them both side to side unconsciously.

“Yeah,” Eren agrees, squeezing Jean’s wrist as he stares at the ridiculous painting and remembers the way the girl’s eyes lit up when Jean said he’d fallen in love with it. He’s good at that, brightening people’s otherwise shitty days. Eren should try to be better at that, maybe Jean can teach him. He decides then that maybe they don’t need to do a funeral, but a wake with their mother at home won’t hurt anyone. In fact, it might even help.

“I believe I was promised your body,” Eren adds after his moment of reflection, and isn’t even surprised when Jean smacks his ass first.


	9. things you said through your teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from tumblr prompt meme:   
> 2-four things you said through your teeth (3 other people requested this exact same thing for erejean, so adding it here)  
> also combining with a request of 17 for erejean  
> 17-things you said that i wish you hadnt
> 
> (this is that erejearmin redneck au if it were actually erejean - which doesn’t really matter at all, except that if you’ve read the redneck au you will see similarities. rated, warnings for underage sexual content, mentions of off-screen past abuse, religion, aggression, etc)

they are twelve years old, and having the attention span of toddlers doesn’t mix well with having to sit quietly through a sermon.

it’s too hot in the pews to sit for any extended period of time anywhere, the wafting humid heat washing over them, clinging to their skin like a wet blanket. jean’s daddy says only sinners go out to play in the fields on a sunday morning, but jean’s daddy also hits him with a belt when he catches the two of them roughhousing out in the mud. eren doesn’t get why jean listens to him, but they still have fun - even here, which might explain why playing chicken with each other’s thighs where they think no one can see them seems like the best thing to be doing at this very moment.

"damnit," jean hisses, trying his best to whisper, jerking forward as eren pinches at what he already knows is the softest, sorest place on jean’s thigh. eren smirks to himself, thinks about jean pulling his pants down, how stupid he’ll look all spattered with tiny bruises.

"ah, shit!" eren yelps, because jean’s gone deep this time, grabbing what he can reach between eren’s legs. it’s more like a punch than a pinch.

” _eren_ ,” eren’s mother whispers harshly, turning her head just enough from the seat in front of them to know she’s caught them doing something.

jean looks petrified for a moment, and eren uses this to get him on his stomach this time, snapping the elastic of his briefs tucked beneath the waist of his shorts as hard as he can, the sound of it alarmingly loud.

that’s when jean’s daddy’s head whips around. jean’s face is bright red, and eren flashes to the most composed rigidity a sweating, ornery boy caught and ready to lie can manage.

"the  _fuck_  are you boys doin’?” he grumbles.

"my fault, thought i saw a bug on jean’s knee, sir," eren says, and his mouth shivers beneath a hint of a smile when he hears jean stifle a laugh next to him.

jean’s daddy just glares, mostly at eren, and it’ll take eren a long, long time to understand why he always looks so disgusted with him. eren just figures it’s ‘cause he’s always so dirty, and playing with jean only ever makes it worse.

"smile," jean whispers through a forced grin, elbowing eren in the side. eren snaps to the brightest, most obnoxious smile he can muster, and jean’s daddy huffs like a tired out mule before turning back around.

—

they’re seventeen years old and there’s some kind of tropical storm about to hit, rolling thunder and curtains of rain battering the old shed out the back of jean’s house, the one they’ve been spending more and more time in.

and it’s good it’s so loud, because jean’s dad is home, and god help them both if he hears what they’re doing.

jean rolls eren’s body until he’s straddling his hips, panting so hard his chest shivers with it. eren goes limp in defeat, because jean’s always been just a little stronger than him, and then bites his lip when he pushes his hips up, lets jean feel how gone he is from this.

"fuck," jean gasps, and then he’s pushing eren’s arms against the ground, holding them above his head. he curses again when he scrapes a knuckle on one of their rusty old zippers to tug their pants down, but then jean’s boxers are cutting into the pale flesh of his ass and eren moans like he always fucking wants to when they do this.

jean grabs his jaw, holds both of eren’s arms with one hand, as if eren would ever try to move them. he ruts against eren as best he can, tangled in fabric and still panting like he can’t breathe quite right in here. it’s still humid and warm, and wrestling around in a room with no air conditioning doesn’t help that. eren doesn’t move his arms, but he does lean up to lick jean’s cheek, moaning at the salty tang of sweat.

"quiet," jean grits out through his teeth, voice like a smack, squeezing at eren’s jaw so hard it almost hurts. eren can’t do much outside of pushing his hips up, stifling the broken little sounds his throat wants to make every time he feels his dick slide against jean’s.

after jean comes he collapses, starts kissing all over eren’s jaw like he’s sorry for holding it so hard, and it’s gotta be the feeling of jean’s soft stomach that gets eren off when he jerks himself. gotta be.

—

they’re twenty-three and jean’s all up in eren’s face, jaw locked, baring his teeth. he’s got eren cornered, but not in the good way. eren hurts all over, and jean isn’t even touching him, just looking at him the way his dad does, like he’s a piece of dirt.

"get the fuck outta my house," jean growls, hoarse, sounding almost broken with it.

eren shakes his head, says quietly, “no,” and then jumps a little when jean smacks the wall at either side of eren’s head with his palms.

"you’re tryin to kill me, aren’t you? want me dead in a fucking casket, huh, is that how you _want me_?”

eren frowns, the hurt from before spreading and burning, like spilling hot water all over his chest. “that isn’t what i meant, jean-“

jean deflates, takes a step back. he looks sorry, of course he does. always sorry.

"you can’t say that in here, in my room. he’s right out there, eren, if he hears us-"

"he’s an old fuckin’ man, jean," eren snaps, striding forward. "he’s an old degenerate prick of a man who you can’t just let the fuck  _go_.”

jean wipes his face, says, “i wish i never met you,” and eren goes.

—

they are thirty-two years young, and eren stands like a fool on jean’s doorstep, suit and bow-tie, a red carnation held tight in a trembling fist.

jean opens the door not long after he knocks, slumps against the door frame and covers his face, shoulders shaking as he laughs. eren hates it when he does that - his pa got it into his head that he looked a fool when he smiled, said his teeth were too big for his mouth. 

"you my prom date or somethin’?" jean asks, flicking a petal of the flower eren almost forgot he was holding. jean looks just as sharp himself, at least outwardly. eren knows he’s broken, but he’s gotten so good at hiding it over the years.

"yeah," eren says, smiling, "i am, actually."

jean tsk’s at him, swipes his keys from hook by the door, and then strides past eren as he mutters, “it’s a funeral, you dick, not our goddamn prom.”

"hey," eren grabs jean by the elbow, stops him dead in his tracks. eren only squeezes his arm because it helps, because he’s still learning that it’s okay now, it’s okay to be honest, it’s okay to love him. the old bastard’s finally given up the ghost, but jean’s always gonna hang on to some of it. eren grits his teeth, speaks from a place of anger, of truth, says, "this is for all the shit we couldn’t do. so yeah, i’m takin’ you to our fuckin’ prom, fourteen years late."

jean huffs out something like a laugh, smiling with half his mouth. he kisses the angry tension from eren’s lips and mumbles, “after the funeral, we’ll go out. let me put him in the ground first.”

eren nods, and he doesn’t realize he’s shaking until jean plucks the flower from his clenched fist. he breaks off the stem, slides it into the pocket over eren’s left breast and then pats it so it stays there. the rest of the night falls on quiet ears, and eren is so ready.


	10. driving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from tumblr prompt meme: 5-things you didn’t say at all  
> and  
> 7-things you said while we were driving  
> (warnings for drug use, swearing)
> 
> \----------

it’s dark and the world seems to tip on its axis every time jean rounds the bend up the hills. the car is still old, which is a farce, because everything else is jean’s life is brand fucking new. 

"glove box, altoid tin," jean says, tendons on his hand flexing as he shifts to fourth. the engine revs, and eren’s heart feels like it’s stalling. his hands shake on the tin, but this car is so damn loud no one can hear the way it rattles in his palms.

"i can’t roll when you drive like a fucking maniac," eren bites, because yelling comes easier than begging.

jean turns his head, his hair whipping in the wind from the cracked windows, and he’s grinning so big it’s like his face is illuminated, even out here in the dark.

"you love my driving!" he yells back, picking up even more speed, and eren focuses on not fucking this up again.

-

"ivy league trash, since when do you hold joints like they’re fucking cigarettes?"

jean gasps dramatically when eren plucks it from his fingers, cupping it in his palm like they always did - should still do.

"if the boot fits, or whatever," jean says, leaning back so that he’s laying flat on the hood of his car, the metal still warm from the engine beneath them. he’s got his knees bent, and one foot tapping anxiously against the chipped chrome around the edges.

"i don’t think you even know what that means, dude," eren says on an inhale, his voice clipped, throat full of smoke.

jean bursts out into a faded little laugh, socks eren in the thigh where he’s laying next to him, and then opens his fist and leaves it there. eren glances down and catches jean’s pinky finger hooking into his pocket, pulling. as if it’s eren that’s going somewhere.

"i know enough," jean mumbles, his voice warm and secret, and eren is too scared to admit he knows exactly what that means. or maybe it’s the weak high.

-

jean skids to a stop in front of eren’s house, revs up the engine and then slams on the breaks to make the tires squeak, and laughing is easier than begging, too. he’s ready to leave now. the motion sensor for the light of his porch flicks on, and eren’s hands feel fuzzy, like touching needles. like losing his grip.

"hey."

he turns towards jean’s voice, watches his face shift through what looks like a painful twist of emotion, and eren knows, but he can’t say it because it makes it final.

jean smiles like it hurts, looks down at eren’s chest and tugs on the zipper of his hoodie.

eren makes an affronted sound, like jean is an insufferable presence, and then tugs him in for a hug, which is more awkward than it should be, leaning over the gear shift.

_i’ll miss you,_  eren thinks, squeezing his eyes shut when he feels jean’s lips press against his neck.  _i’ll miss you and your dad’s car and how your mouth tastes like smoke when we pretend we aren’t doing this._

"good luck in rhode island," eren says, pulling jean away, clutching his nape. jean’s eyes are wet, angry looking, but he smiles anyway, because it’s always been easier. "of course you skip town to go to the smallest state in the country."

jean’s voice must be gone. he laughs, mouths  _"fuck you",_ and then he lets eren go, just like that.

inside, eren lets his back fall into the door once it’s closed, slides until his feet are kicked out in front of him, legs sprawled into a v on the ground. jean doesn’t leave for what feels like another hour, eren can hear the car idling outside, and eren only moves to his bedroom when mikasa walks past and kicks the sole of his shoe without even looking.

"he’s gone," she says, peering out the window, and eren wipes the taste of jean’s hair from his mouth. 


	11. We Are Adults

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "archaicacid asked:  
> erejean and them still being a little too rambunctious in their late 20's  
> \----------  
> eren/jean | au in which eren and jean were metalcore trash babies in their teens and are now trying to find solace in musicals and ‘culture’ because They Are Adults | warnings for mentions of alcohol, trashtalking local theater, etc  
> (this is pretty much the opposite of what you asked for lol im sorry 3)"

“Oh my god, I’m already bored,” Eren mumbles under his breath, taking in the drapery hung on the walls, the plastic champagne flutes held in everyone’s hands, and– yep, that’s definitely a line at the booth set up for the cast members to sign the programs. Jean has heard of literally none of them, but maybe it’s some kind of theater-type custom.

“It hasn’t even started,” Jean chides him, wincing through a gulp of stale (yet  _free_ , which is a plus) wine. There are maybe a grand total of 80 people in this playhouse, sitting out in the fields on the edge of town. Jean never really thought they lived in a ‘small town’ but now he’s reconsidering.

“I don’t want it to start, I don’t even know how to react to this kind of shit.” Eren hisses beneath his breath, eyes widening in shock as an old woman whips him in the face with a cheap looking feather boa. “It’s like a fucking costume party, what–”

“It’s local culture,” Jean says with fond exasperation, turning to straighten Eren’s shirt. His 'nice shirt’, to be exact, which means it’s the slightly less wrinkled lumberjack plaid button up, the one  _without_  the holes in the elbows. “People like to make it fancy, it’s all for fun.”

“Fine,” Eren says, pushing Jean’s hand away from his collar only to grab for his plastic wine glass. He finishes it off in one go. “But I still think there’s more to culture than  _this_.”

 

_This_  ends up being somewhat of a disaster. Jean was optimistic, yes, but he’d got the tickets for free from work, and an  _'operatic musical interpretation of Gone With the Wind’_  sounded better in theory than it ends up being in reality. Their lead actor can’t sing, the set props fall over a few times, and their Scarlett has a very strong Bostonian accent – Vivien Leigh would be turning over in her grave.

“No one ever claps,” Eren whispers harshly into Jean’s ear, after what feels like the millionth act before intermission. (How _long_ is this fucking thing supposed to be?) “Aren’t people supposed to clap when the lights go down?”

“How the fuck should I know?” Jean whispers back from one side of his mouth, focusing up on the stage.

There’s an older man to Jean’s left who starts hacking up a lung – these wet gloopy sounding coughs that makes the cheap wine churn angrily in Jean’s stomach. The campy outfits he could do, was even partly enjoying earlier, but this is rather bleak.

By the time intermission strolls around (finally) Eren looks like he’s lost the will to live, poor baby, bored out of his damn mind. It’s been two hours –  _two fucking hours_ and that’s only half of the goddamn show – and it’s wearing down on them like a lead weight made of stunted dialogue and excessively scented face powder.

It just– it isn’t what they’re used to, that’s all, Jean reasons. They met in a pit at one of the grungier venues downtown, made out of sweating bodies and torn up tshirts, spinning kicks to screaming vocals and double bass drums. He’d accidentally windmill punched Eren in the face, and they’d hated each other for all of about thirty minutes before they both started getting animated talking about their favorite albums. Eren was more a Converge kinda guy, he’d claimed, wiping the blood dripping from his nose, and Jean had thought  _yeah, I’m having this one._

Now, settled down and rapidly approaching their 30s, it feels like a last ditch attempt at fitting the mold, so to speak, like going to a local play and eating tapas will magically make more sense out of being  _'that gay couple down the street’_. Suburbia is its own, special kind of beast, Jean thinks, and he  _tsk_ ’s as Eren chugs his way through another cup of white wine.

“God, this shit tastes like fruity piss,” Eren groans, wincing as the wine sloshes down his throat. An old woman in a pillbox hat sends Eren the most evillest of eyes, and Jean turns him away from her – for her own good, more than anything else.

“Stop drinking it then,” he murmurs. Jean leans in then to kiss the very corner of Eren’s petulant scowl. Now pillbox hat lady’s companion is staring – great.

 

After having sufficiently stuffed their faces with the greasy free appetizers on offer, the front hall empties as the lights flicker on and off in warning for the play to resume. Jean thinks for a moment of escaping, but gets ushered back inside by the flow of the crowd with the way Eren clings to him desperately, refusing to let go of his grip on his sleeve.

They are not two minutes into the next act when the old man next to him tips sideways, halfway to sleep. Jean jolts in his chair, because  _no_ – no, physical contact with strangers is limited to seedy clubs and mosh pits, this is unacceptable. He scoots forward, ignoring the hisses of  _'shh’_  around them as his plastic chair skids loudly against the laminate flooring, and then practically yanks Eren out of his own chair to escape half crawling on the ground.

A few stepped on toes and a half moment’s worth of panic that they might set the alarm off later and they’re practically skipping out the side door together, Eren’s hysterical laughter still miraculously quiet – as if literally everyone in there hadn’t seen their clumsy escape.

Eren is still laughing, half wheezing from it, as he pushes Jean backwards into the brick of the side wall, clutching either side of his face and grinning.

“We’re never doing this again, right?”

“Clarify  _‘this’_ ,” Jean murmurs, tugging Eren’s hips towards his and moaning as Eren’s tongue slips warm and wet into his mouth. 

Kissing Eren feels the same as it did ten years ago – without the skintight black jeans and band tshirts, but the physical effect is all the same. Eren is a rush, and while he’s grumpy and easily bored sometimes, when you get him in the right moment – like this, like escaping from normalcy, like running from a future you weren’t even sure you wanted – he’s fucking _beautiful_.

“ _Mmph_ ,” Eren bashes his face awkwardly into Jean’s, and then yelps as he stumbles backwards. “Homeless guy. Behind… you.”

“Shit,” Jean curses, whipping himself around. There’s a guy leaned half against the wall, staring at them with no real expression on his face.

Eren half trips his way down into the parking lot, tipsy on the cheap shitty wine and clearly game for  _something_ , but Jean doesn’t follow, not right away.

He leans down, and hands his ticket stub to the man.

“There’s food in there,” He says, though part of him thinks  _and alcohol, shit._  But he’s never been that good at distancing himself from judgment. Tonight only serves as proof.

The man takes it with an amused looking tilt to his smile, and then Jean sprints after Eren.

Eren is standing against their car, panting and trying his best to catch his breath, and Jean pushes right into him, kisses him deep and slow. 'Culture’ is debatable, he decides. They live in upper-middle-class deliverance – maybe the culture they need is a little far out of their reach, but who the fuck cares. At least they tried.


End file.
